Gillian Davis Artist Bio

Gillian Davis is a 2D visual artist /illustrator. Works are primarily in large scale, water based, collage and mixed media. Davis’s work is entirely improvisational, process oriented and deeply reliant on place, identity and the ongoing undulation of self revelation.

Her work, without intention, always finds itself within the shared and understood space of traditional storytelling.

Gillian Davis was born and raised in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. She then studied at Pennsylvania State University where she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting and drawing.

After her graduation from PSU, Gillian committed to a life as a full time “artist in residence “. For the next several years she traveled throughout Western and Eastern Europe as well as Northern Africa, attending formal artist residencies as well as self imposed residencies, committing her personal practice to creating art about place and the reaction of ones inner narrative in relationship within it.

On Davis’s return to the United States she made Brooklyn, NY her new home and started her creative practice there for the next two years. Inadvertently, while in NYC she became involved with a community of sustainable agriculture/rangeland management activists and obtained a professional position as a working Shepard in charge of a flock of 800 cashmere goats in central Wyoming. The two “Sheparding” years were spent living transiently, in a caravan, working with sustainable grazing practices and primarily creating artwork in reaction and in relationship with the landscape,animals and the day to day realities of agrarian life.

Gillian continued to live in Wyoming for the following 5 years. While maintaining an active studio practice as well as an active involvement in ranching, animal husbandry and rangeland management, Davis began working with the Ark foundation, a non profit that supports families and assists individuals with developmental disabilities. During this time Gillian developed an art education program that intertwined creative expression with occupational therapy creating a much needed enrichment and therapeutic opportunity for economically disadvantaged,developmentally disabled youth.

After 7 years spent in Wyoming Gillian relocated to Los Angeles, CA. In Los Angeles she kept an active studio practice in addition to assisting in several different studios of prominent LA artists. Gillian also obtained a teaching position as head of 2D arts and design at Flintridge Sacred Heart, a private girls high school in La Canada, California.

Gillian presently lives in Gloucester, Massachusetts where she keeps an active studio practice with painting and drawing and has turned her focus, more recently towards illustration. Currently, Davis is working with a nonprofit based in Tanzania that advocates for the needs of the Maasai children. Presently, she is working on a children’s book that is designed to educate and advocate for the particular health and environmental challenges the Maasai face as an indigenous culture.

Since 2004 Gillian has exhibited in the US In New York, Los Angeles, and Gloucester, Massachusetts.

For further inquiries please email…

Gillian.davis@gmail.com