JIM DAVIES

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"Sunset/Lightrollers"

Jim Davies, "Sunset/Lightrollers," 2002, chalk, conte, 22" x 30".

JIM DAVIES

By Jennifer MacLeod

Landscape has been an enduring theme in Jim Davies' 25 years of image making in Alberta. Enthralled still by the diversity of western terrain and ever-mindful of the formal traditions of landscape art, Davies now approaches his drawings and paintings less from direct observation and more from memory and sensory awareness. The landscape, he says, serves as the "template" within which he endulges his gestural expressions of personal experiences and contemplations. Working primarily in chalk pastels, Davies creates painterly images using drawing techniques.

"My desire is to create excitement in the image through rapid mark-making," says Davies. Hatch marks, dots, wisps of colour help Davies capture the flickers of light, random sounds and other sensations that resonate in his mind as he relives a scene on paper or canvas. A solo exhibition of colour chalk drawings, The Blue Before Dawn, Recent Works by Jim Davies, runs until September 14, 2003, at the Red Deer & District Museum, in Red Deer, Alberta. Davies is represented in Victoria by Fran Willis Galleries and in Calgary by Wallace Galleries.