| I am greatly
indebted to the advice and guidance of John Charles Clark of the St Ives
School of Painting who made the following comments about my work in 2003.
John Charles Clark says:
"Having studied the
disciplines of portraiture, landscape and figure painting and drawing
earlier in her training, Cynthia Davis has travelled on a long journey
toward finding a personal style that fulfills all her needs within her
works, through which she needs to speak.
Endowed with the natural
gifts of drawing, composition and use of colour, her search has been to
find a language that will allow her to use her abilities for channeling
images direct from her psyche onto canvas and paper without too much
dependence on her 'given skills', while also avoiding a too literal
representation of her subject. Her images contain mythic
architypal symbols of power, both human and animal, from the records of
time.
During 2002 she started
to construct her compositions by using thick outer lines to her
forms; this allows Cynthia to lock the whole pictorial plane
together. The way she holds her brush gives her a direct
contact with the canvas; this creates a link straight from her
unconscious - it could be said that she literally squeezes the images onto
the canvas's surface with her brush.
She manages a wide range
of colours on her palette, which give her paintings a stained glass or
tapistry quality of richness; all instinctively balanced with what
appears little effort, almost in a mediumistic manner.
She now trusts the
painting process itself to tell her when the image is developed enough to
stop working it, leaving its reading open for those who view it later
allowing them to make their own associations and connections: in
this way each can complete its meaning for themselves - thus she
collectivizes her 'vision' gift.
Her journey is far from
over, but all her long years of perseverance are culminating in works of
individuality and maturity that are bound to bring her an audience
response.
John Charles Clark,
2003" |
