|
Steel and Wood
“It is easier to describe Davy’s
work than to
account for its extraordinary effect. Objects prototypically consist of
a few lengths of rusty-looking metal joined in spare upright-and-angle
frameworks. Apexes of angles are topped by short, stumpy lengths of
log, sometimes fire-scorched, ocasionally replaced by stones.
The
monumental “Rolling Fork” takes up a whole gallery with just three big
angles and logs. It’s overt formalism immediately gives way to a rich
series of associations. It looks like a medieval battering ram or three
doomed dinosaurs marching into a quagmire. The logs are disembodied
cerebral cortices inventing pure philosophy and mathematics.
Every work
evakes a variation on this almost alchemical mixture of pure formalism
and subliminal evocation of imagery and sensation. Five little
maquettes in a row suggest everything from a Shinto shrine to the
prehistoric postures of the Pilobolus dance troupe.
Davy seems to have
hit upon a basic lexicon on materials and procedure that permits
virtually inexhaustible expressive extension. He is certainly among the
most important half-dozen artists developed here in the ‘70s.”
- William Wilson, art critic
Los Angeles Times, Sept. 1981
|
