BORN IN SIDCUP, KENT, UNITED KINGDOM 1966
CURRENTLY LIVES AND WORKS IN LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM

For over 20 years, Ian Davenport has made paintings by pouring paint onto a tilted surface. Driven by an enduring fascination with the materiality of paint, he goes to work using his signature technique, which delivers elegant vertical lines cascading down the panels into rich puddles of color. Davenport’s control is evident in the carefully composed series of colors that populate his paintings, which are experiments in color relationships guided by his intuition and mastery of the subject. Davenport often uses the colors in the historical work as a reference point to initiate his own color sequences and explorations of movement, surface and light. In so doing, he questions how color gives shape to a picture, helping to structure the background and foreground in representational pictures, and produce rhythm and dynamism in abstract art.

Ian Davenport studied at Goldsmiths' College of Art in London and was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1991. His work is included in many public collections such as the Arts Council Collection, London; British Council Collection, London; Tate, London; The British Museum, London; National Museum of Wales, Cardiff; FNAC Fonds National d’art contemporain, France; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Museu Berardo, Portugal; Von Der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal, Germany; Museum Voorlinden, The Netherlands; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Rose Museum, Massachusetts; Dallas Museum of Art, Texas.

Davenport has exhibited internationally over the past three decades, and in 2018 held a major solo exhibition at Dallas Contemporary, Texas. Davenport’s first extensive monograph was published by Thames and Hudson in 2014. His monumental painting Giardini Colourfall, a single painting spanning 45 feet, was featured within the Giardini of the 57th Venice Biennale, 2017.

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