• Disk, 1968
Moulded Polyester Resin and Fiberglass, 62 X 132 inches (Shaped)

Ronald Davis' resin and fiberglass paintings of the late sixties laid to rest the demand that important abstract painting not be illusionary. Colored planes of splattered and solid resin were painted face down on a Formica table mold, so that the color resides behind the actual glass-like surfaces of the shaped pictures. The illusionary and depicted deep space was inspired by the Renaissance perspective of Paolo Uccello and the perspective studies of Marcel Duchamp, as well as the galactic drips and splatters of Jackson Pollock, the striated canyons of Clyfford Still, and the push-pull of Hans Hoffman. His mastery of the language of color, perspective geometry, space, time, and his virtuoso paint handling lend to the work a profound poetry. Davis' work can convey extreme wit, sensitivity, and at the same time a no-holds-barred toughness. His paintings are a complex strata of paradoxes. They combine then new to painting surf board technology with ferocious Jackson Pollock-like freedom, Renaissance perspective, and Piet Mondrian's balanced precision. Davis brought to reality the beginning of a new age of the painterly possibilities of post-Einsteinian concepts. Influences of Ronald Davis' splattered, geometric paintings of the middle and late sixties can be seen everywhere in today's art world. Davis has been exhibiting his work since 1963 and has had a total of 58 one-man shows in major galleries and museums all over the world. His work has appeared in countless major group exhibitions, and his paintings are in important museums and private collections all around the world.

Born 1937, Santa Monica, California

Resides in Arroyo Hondo, New Mexico