cam.contemporarie presents, Reminiscing, the first solo exhibition in Chicago by St. Louis based artist, Vaughn Davis Jr. Through select works in this exhibition, Vaughn explores familial history through vintage photographs inherited from his great grandparents that depict moments of celebration and mourning. These embedded photos offer a glimpse into the 60’s and 70’s era of Black American life, and serve as a reminder of a moment in time. 

For Davis Jr., this process of applying archival photos within his work acts as a metaphor for how memories are held through time and space. His bespoke way of distressing the photos and manipulating the canvas speaks to mining, loss and age, and his method of tearing, cutting, and ripping the canvas creates a picture plane that further synthesizes the act. His process of abstraction is not just limited to the process of mark making on the canvas, but through the treatment of the raw material. These works are layered with an arsenal of media including dye, dry pigment, acrylic and oil paint. This process of untangling and unraveling speaks to how memories, emotions, and history become entangled within the work, whether that be a familiar and comforting memory, a ruptured past, the loss of a member or a deeper conversation rooted in American acts of violence.

The canvas serves as a representation and catalyst of many things that allows Davis Jr. to explore the painting as textile, the painting as sculpture, and the painting as metaphor itself. “I am very interested in what a painting can be and how and where a painting can be seen,” Davis Jr. says, who primarily works on the floor of his studio and outdoors when he is creating. The manipulation of canvas and its construction has rich history of exploration by artists such Lucio Fontana who’s slashed canvases changed art history, or the late Sam Gilliam who is widely known for his abstracted and draped canvas. Davis Jr. has found his voice in continuing the canon of this poetic conversation and the legacy of American craft tradition through a contemporary lens within his work.

St. Louis based artist Vaughn Davis Jr. creates paintings that are manipulated through the use of deconstructive methods. These paintings take note from the philosophies of Wabi-Sabi, Afro-Pessimism and question American Craft traditions. This process becomes a metaphor for violence, care and mistreatment. In his work, Davis Jr. is exploring beauty and chaos and struggle and success.

Through the use of unfurled, sheets of unprimed canvas he creates paintings in the expanded form through abstractions which are then deconstructed into forms. Methods of tearing and cutting compose the picture plane. These works are layered with an arsenal of media including dye, dry pigment, acrylic and oil paint. In many regards, he expresses the outliers of the painting process through these elements. They are predicated upon the dismantlement of the picture plane and the deconstruction of the painting process.

Davis Jr. received his BFA with Departmental Honors in Sculpture from Webster University in St. Louis. Recent museum exhibitions include a solo presentation at the Laumeier Sculpture Park, St. Louis, MO. He has been awarded the Delta Voices: Artists of the Mid-South by the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts. His work has been exhibited at Dragon Crab Turtle, Monaco Gallery, The Luminary in St. Louis MO, Gazebo Gallery, Kent, OH; among others. He has had solo exhibitions at Romer Young Gallery, San Francisco, CA;  Philip Slein Gallery and the Center of Creative Arts both located in St. Louis. and was included  in the group exhibition, “A Magical Day at Ditch!” at Tripoli Gallery, Wainscott, NY, curated by St. Louis-based painter, Katherine Bernhardt.