Artospective: Paintings by Julyan Davis from England.

'Where the sun refuses to Shine’ Oil on canvas 2012 (Appalachian Ballad Series).

An Interview with Julyan Davis.

Who and where are you from?

I was born and raised in England. I studied printmaking at the Byam Shaw School of Art in London.

How you got into this

I always knew I was going to be a painter. An interest in the music, literature and history of the American South brought me here. A three month trip turned into thirty years.

What is your driving force?

I paint to communicate. I’ve always had a realist’s interest in drawing attention to the beauty that can be found in places and subjects most people dismiss as ugly. I have never felt at home in any one place but rather hope to follow my grandfather’s observation- that an artist is a citizen of the world. Living in the South, I finally learned to think like an outsider artist. Don’t paint for the art world, paint for your fellow man.

What kind of work you do and why?

I paint in oils. My work is currently divided into three genres:

I record architecture, full of history, that is vanishing or disappearing due to neglect or gentrification.

I paint pure landscape, seeking to find something of the expressive force of the Romantic painters; Friedrich, Turner and the like. I love to walk and be in nature. Painting outside is a joy.

Lastly, I paint large-scale narrative paintings that find stories in America’s lost histories, music and folklore that symbolically speak to the present. These series are painted to tour museums and non-profit spaces, and are accompanied by lectures and performances. I love discovering this subject matter and sharing with the public how it speaks to my imagination. I feel like an archaeologist, revealing to the public what lies all around them.

The varied genres, as the images hopefully show, are connected by a single mood. There has always been a gentle, but cautious, evolution towards the painterly in my work. Turner’s path towards light alone makes complete sense to me, but my subject matter demands a balance I continue to seek.