Deondre Davis

Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA

Artist statement

My practice explores the relationship between systems, material, space, and memory. Working across painting, drawing, and sculpture, I examine how structures of order and constraint can become sites of transformation, intuition, and freedom. I refer to my sculptures as redirected objects. That I collect and alter with materials such as artificial eyelashes and cowrie shells. Removed from their original functions, these objects become assemblages that evoke totems and ritual forms. I install them in response to architecture, positioning them near ceilings, within corners, or adjacent to electrical outlets. Their placement activates the systems already embedded within a space, bringing infrastructure into relation with the human body and the natural world. Constraint, passage, movement, circulation, protection, and memory become intertwined within these material relationships. My paintings and drawings are rooted in what I describe as system-driven logic. A graphite grid often serves as the underlying structure, mapped across paper or unprimed canvas. Within and against this framework, I build layered compositions of geometric forms and fields of translucent and opaque color using gouache, oil paint, and graphite. The grid establishes a set of rules, but I use those rules as a point of departure rather than a fixed endpoint. Lines waver and depart from strict perpendiculars; color moves beyond its boundaries; graphite and paint accumulate through smudges, uneven...

Artwork