Michael Davis

Michael Davis is a Los Angeles-based artist, working in drawing, sculpture, installation art, and public art. He maintains a studio in San Pedro, California. He received a master's degree in Fine Art from California State University, Fullerton, and has received grants including the National Endowment for the Arts. His work is in museums and galleries across the United States. His significant body of public art is in rail stations, public parks, and civic buildings across the United States and in Japan. He is the co-author and subject of Progress: In Search of the American Esthetic, an exhibition that featured photographs, video projections, audio, and ephemera documenting the cross-country round trip via car by artists Michael Davis and Stephen Moore from California to New York and back in 1970.

Influences Davis had early influence from Downey High School art teacher Ray White. He was a graduate of Chouinard Art Institute, the influential school and incubator for early Los Angeles contemporary artists. White introduced Davis to the work of Italian abstract expressionist Rico Lebrun, and to the German Bauhaus School of Art, that combined crafts and fine arts.

Davis grew up in Cold War America, and was highly influenced by the ever-present threat of communism and nuclear war.

American installation artist Robert Irwin influenced Davis in the relationship of separation of public and private space. Irwin's public art maintains a focus in creating subtle, at times vanishing environments with plain materials.

Reception Davis was included in a compilation of Los Angeles artists called L.A. Rising: SoCal Artists Before 1980. The compilation by Lynn Kienholz documented the work of 500 important artists working in Los Angeles during the growth of the seminal art scene. In that book, Walter Hopps wrote: "Davis's works have a strong iconographic content...not only is there an interest in architectural form, but also a kind of mythology...It's crafted and put together like something on the fringes of urban society."

Christopher Miles said of Davis: "Davis's practice is clearly informed by a long personal history on the part of the artist with direct engagement in the discourses of conceptual art practice, situational aesthetics, semiotics, deconstruction, and the critique of representation.... Though in ways elegiac, but not sentimental or nostalgic, Davis's work aspires to be art of his epoch, and perhaps even for his epoch–an art that engages with shared experience and endeavor, shared excitement and shared angst."

Art critic Howard N. Fox, in the catalogue essay "Road Trip/Road Show", described Progress, In Search of the American Esthetic by Michael Davis and Stephen Moore as a contemporary example of a cross-country artistic project, undertaken in 1970 and revisited in 2005. He noted that the work engages with themes of American culture, landscape, and artistic traditions, reflecting on the country's visual and cultural identity.

Public Art

Partial List

Design of Studio/Art Lab, Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, California, 2020 California Street Bridge Project, Ventura, California, 2019 Hats, in collaboration with Eugene Daub, Lincoln Park Sculpture Garden, Burbank, California, 2018 View Finders, San Francisco Exploratorium, Pier 15, San Francisco, California, 2015 Travellers, Long Beach ARRA Transit Project, Long Beach, 2011 SALUTE, Kansas City Police Station, Kansas City, 2010 Re-Creation, Homage to the Urban Amateur, in collaboration with Susan Schwartzenberg, Harvey Milk Recreation Center, San Francisco, California, 2009 Counter/Balance, Fire Station 36, San Pedro, California, 2006 Made in the USA, Lander Station Rail Project, Seattle, Washington, 2006 Equilibrium, Bronx Courthouse, New York, New York, 2006 Grantville Station Art, Grantville Station, San Diego, California, 2005 Rainbow Fountain, Long Beach, California, 2004 Occurrence, Santa Monica Police, Fire, and Emergency Facility, Santa Monica, California, 2003 WE THE PEOPLE, West San Fernando Valley Courthouse, Chatsworth, California, 2003 The Water Screen, Main Street Square, Houston, Texas, 2003 The Golden Section, Washington State University, Vancouver, Washington, 2003 The Big Frame 2, Sarasota, Florida, 2002 Chandelier Fall, Hollywood & Highland Project, Hollywood, California, 2001 Ecliptic/Illume, Sunset/Vermont Metro Station, Los Angeles, California, 1999 Heritage Park Sculpture Garden, sculpture garden design and five public art installations, Santa Fe Springs, California, 1999 Lanterns, Heritage Springs Sculpture Garden, Santa Fe Springs, California, 1999 Wicker Parlor, Heritage Springs Sculpture Garden, Santa Fe Springs, California, 1999 Derrick and Steel, Heritage Springs Sculpture Garden, Santa Fe Springs, California, 1999 Fossil Fountain, Heritage Springs Sculpture Garden, Santa Fe Springs, California, 1999 Snake Basket Fountain, Heritage Springs Sculpture Garden, Santa Fe Springs, California, 1999