- Title
- Our State
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- Date
- June 2009
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-
- Place
- ["North Carolina, United States"]
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Our State
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Carolina artist
Uncommon Ground
Asheville painter Julyan Davis lends a fresh eye to the landscapes of the South.
By Alii Marshall
PHOTOGRAPHY BY MATT ROSE
At first glance, Julyan Davis's work could be
described as photorealism. From amass
the room his Southern -themed canvases look more
like sun-drenched photograph* than painting*.
But Davis believes his work defies that description.
“Maybe from a distance it's vciv realistic, but as you
get close up it falls into these blocks of color and very
dclinite lines,” he says. Look closely at “VVashertciia,”
anti the realistic effect gives way to a Cubist-inspired
flattening of planes. The seme is true for many of
Davis's paintings: Saturated slices of Americana —
a motel sign, a Laundromat, a motor court pool in
winter — reveal an eerie licauty.
"It's not that I go around looking for Americana," he
sap. But in many ways, Americana found him.
Southern inclination
Bom in Chard. England, and raised in London, Davis
came to the United States for the first time in 1988,
just out of North London's Byam Shaw School of Art.
He was drawn to the Smith after reading a history of
Alabama, and he made the Library of Congress hi* first
stop to continue research. I Ic eventually made his way
to ««stern North Carolina — Highlands, particularly —
and later moved to Asheville in puisuit of his wife's
acting career.
158 Out Stat» lunt jcot
