{"id":36667,"date":"2018-03-27T20:37:21","date_gmt":"2018-03-28T02:37:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=36667"},"modified":"2025-10-24T07:04:39","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T14:04:39","slug":"paul-davis-controlled-accidents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/paul-davis-controlled-accidents\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Davis: Controlled Accidents"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2013,\u00a0Paul Davis was selected by 200 of his peers as one of \u201cUtah\u2019s 15 most influential artists.\u201d The following profile appeared in Utah\u2019s 15: The State\u2019s Most Influential Artists, published by Artists of Utah in 2014.
\n<\/em>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Photo by Zoe and Robert Rodriguez. <\/p>\n

P<\/span>aul Davis likes his studio dark. He compares the former garage \u2014 now rendered useless by the roof-high pile of firewood in front of its doors \u2014 to \u201cthe bat cave.\u201d Inside, where the windows are blacked-out, the only natural light comes from a small skylight that the artist keeps mostly obstructed. \u201cIt\u2019s a little dark, a little sleepy,\u201d he says, \u201clike a movie theater just before it goes dark. That\u2019s the way I like it.\u201d<\/h4>\n

Though he has made Utah his home for close to 40 years, Davis is a New England boy. Born in Rhode Island, he grew up in Connecticut before moving to a small town in the mountains of Vermont at age 10. He can remember his perfect Saturday as a child \u2014 in the museums until 1o\u2019clock and the rest of the day in the movie theater. \u201cThose two things have always been mixed up in my head,\u201d he says. In third grade, when television was just coming to the neighborhood, he remembers there wasn\u2019t much on, mostly old black-and-white movies from the \u201830s. So, he says, you\u2019d end up watching anything\u2014good or bad didn\u2019t matter\u2014 and that early mix of imagery has been swimming around his head ever since.<\/h4>\n

\u201cPainting used to be what movies are now,\u201d he muses, comparing a fiery Rubens masterpiece to today\u2019s action flicks. \u201cWhen film and camera came along, painting had to become something else to survive. Or at least they thought it did.\u201d But Davis\u2019 own art has been reluctant to give up the light and shadow of the cinematic. It has always been imbued with a narrative sense, and frequently relied on dramatic lighting. Underlying this, however, has always been a tension between disclosure and concealment, story and mystery, coming from a master draftsman with a desire to both conceal and reveal in narratives hinted at but never fully explicated.<\/h4>\n

After a stint in the service, Davis began investigating art schools, ultimately settling on Boston University, \u201cbecause it offered more figure drawing than any school in the country . . . You\u2019re basically locked up with a naked person in a room for four years.\u201d He enjoyed B.U. for its classical education, core sense of values and what he calls a \u201csolid environment.\u201d They weren\u2019t trendy, or being led by the nose by the art magazines, he explains. In fact, when one critic disparaged the program by saying it was the \u201cbest 19th-century art school in the country,\u201d students and professors embraced the insult as a badge of honor.<\/h4>\n

Davis remained at B.U. for his graduate work as well, mostly for the opportunity to study with Bay Area artist Jim Weeks, and the recently arrived Philip Guston, who was embarking on the figurative portion of his career. \u201cI loved his middle period abstract paintings,\u201d Davis says of Guston. \u201cI didn\u2019t know why. I do now \u2014 they were really figure paintings, very elegant figure paintings.\u201d<\/h4>\n

After school, Davis began picking up a few teaching jobs in Boston, and it was when he took a trip across the country, meaning to go to California, that he bumped into Utah. \u201cIt blew my mind,\u201d he says of the landscapes he discovered there. When he later learned there was a painting and drawing position open at the University of Utah he immediately applied.<\/h4>\n

That was the start of what turned into a 25-year teaching career at the U, a period in which he influenced hundreds of students, many of whom are now well-established artists. \u201cI just try to be helpful,\u201d he says about his teaching style. \u201cI don\u2019t try to be a guru. I just try to teach them how to paint, which is what they want . . . You know, it\u2019s really a great way to earn your living. You\u2019re interested in something that they\u2019re interested in. And you can help. So what more can you ask for. It\u2019s pretty satisfying.\u201d<\/h4>\n

\u201cThere is no one better at teaching figure-drawing than Paul,\u201d says Wendy Chidester, who studied with Davis for her undergraduate work and continues to seek out his instruction in workshops. Other former students speak of him in glowing terms, both as an instructor and as an individual. They speak of his uncanny ability to articulate what is going on in their heads as painters, to put words and a method to the process of creating art (his triangulation method of drawing has become a gospel truth for many of his former students), and of his willingness to spend time with them, treating his profession as more than just a living, but rather a shared adventure.<\/h4>\n

\u201cI have always considered him as an example of how to live life,\u201d says painter Doug Braithwaite. \u201cHe always treats everyone with patience and respect. I have always respected his dedication and work ethic. In a way, walking into Paul\u2019s studio always felt like a religious experience because of his pure interest in the investigation of his art.\u201d<\/h4>\n

While teaching at the U, Davis developed a strong reputation as a draftsman and a figure painter. A retrospective at the Salt Lake Art Center in 1989 displayed his various talents: portraits done directly from life, in three or six-hour sittings, dramatic images stolen from television and film and imbued with an existential sense of mystery; and a series of draped figure paintings that have become his best-known works. These latter both conceal and reveal. Though they feature nude models, sometimes revealing a gleaming shoulder or rounded breast, they aren\u2019t particularly erotic. The real subject is the covering, the glittering textures of the fabrics. These classically rendered and enigmatic figures became Davis\u2019 calling card, establishing him as one of the premier figure painters in the state.<\/h4>\n

\u201cI came to a point where I didn\u2019t have anything more to offer with those paintings,\u201d he says. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to continue along that vein \u2014 classically draped figure paintings, realistic works based on direct observation.\u201d Davis says he had always been known as a good hand and a good eye. He wanted to see if he was anything more. So he took the first sabbatical in his professional career, headed to his home in remote Teasdale and spent what he describes as a very difficult winter pursuing two goals: \u201cI wanted not to be such a serious person . . . and I wanted to see if I had any imagination.\u201d<\/h4>\n

\u201cThe paintings just turned into total chaos,\u201d he says of his initial attempts. \u201cMy strategy was to just go ahead and paint anyways. Most paintings just dissolved into a big mess. And after a while I would look at the big mess and it would start to look interesting and so I would start to doodle around it.\u201d Though he initially mistrusted these floundering attempts, thinking them \u201cstupid\u201d or \u201cunrefined,\u201d he kept plugging away, following a dictate he has since stressed to his students: \u201cWhen you don\u2019t know what to do, do something. Something will happen if you stick at it long enough.\u201d<\/h4>\n

And something did stick. It was a small painting, the type that fits in the palm of your hand, and it was nothing more than random, monochromatic textures, but Davis felt there was something there. He transferred the lines and textures onto a larger canvas and then began a process of discovery that continues two decades later.<\/h4>\n

He begins with a blank canvas and to get something started he\u2019ll use a trowel to lay in a few shapes. Then he\u2019ll proceed with a sort of self-made algorithm, cutting into each shape three or four times, shifting values from light, middle and dark and eventually something will happen. Inside that mass of darks and lights, not unlike the rock formations he can see just down the road from his studio, a figure will begin to appear \u2014 a clown, a pirate, a cowboy: a m\u00e9lange of the B-movie images he absorbed as a child will begin to populate his paintings. Then, like \u201ca cheap god\u201d he\u2019ll bring them to life or wipe them out with a swipe of the putty knife.<\/h4>\n

He talks about this process as a form of automatic writing, a way to access your subconscious. \u201cWhatever goes on inside your skull when you\u2019re dreaming is a little like this process,\u201d he says. \u201cYou begin with random patterns, your visual cortex gets activated and the brain begins looking for patterns and creates a string of narratives that can last for hours. \u201c He\u2019s learned to trust that process, to begin with chaotic patterns and let them stimulate his imagination. \u201cWhat was an accident or a disaster becomes part of your repertoire, part of your bag of tricks,\u201d he says. \u201cIt becomes a way of painting without intention. Of bypassing your ego . . . and trying to get out of the way.\u201d<\/h4>\n

The canvases eventually are littered with figures, in an all-over pattern full of lights and dark, but it all proceeds from controlled accidents. At a certain point, the artist might discover a certain thematic element. It might be a figure that looks like it\u2019s out of an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, and another that might be out of Dickens. And so he\u2019ll pursue the idea of a literary theme.<\/h4>\n

He\u2019s learned, though, not to control too much. \u201cIf I get this great idea like, O.K., now I\u2019m going to make it into this, I can get bogged down for three weeks and it\u2019s not going to work.\u201d<\/h4>\n

The new work has also taught him something about himself. \u201cWhat I discovered was that the person who made these kinds of paintings was a different kind of person than who made the other paintings . . . I kind of liked that person. So then I became a little more like that person.\u201d<\/h4>\n

Davis returned from the sabbatical reinvigorated by this new body of work, and continues two decades later to mine the possibilities of controlled accidents. At the university, however, he was becoming increasingly dissatisfied. You can see it in that first painting, which Davis has retained as a kind of map to return to if he loses his way. In the middle of \u201cThe Clowns Celebrate the Arrival of the Titanic\u201d you\u2019ll see a tiny performing monkey. Davis says it\u2019s a self-portrait.<\/h4>\n

\u201cThe university system generally doesn\u2019t work for art schools,\u201d says Davis. \u201cThere\u2019s something about the tenure system that just doesn\u2019t work. You can\u2019t get enough life, enough change.\u201d But if not in a university setting, where would one teach art? During his tenure at the U, Davis had organized summer painting trips to southern Utah. Inevitably, they would run into problems with weather, so he wanted to develop a program where they wouldn\u2019t be subject to those conditions.<\/h4>\n

In 1999, he and fellow professor David Dornan bought a former brothel in the small town of Helper, Utah. Davis credits Dornan, and his wife Marilou Kundmueller, with doing most of the \u201cheavy lifting,\u201d but together they created the Helper Workshops, which for nearly 15 years has attracted artists, many of whom are already degreed, to the struggling mining town to learn from their favorite teachers.<\/h4>\n

Today Davis is less active in Helper, but he continues to teach summer workshops in Teasdale, where he and wife Silvia Davis both have studios (hers is full of light) next to their lovely home; and for the past 12 years he has taught workshops at Kings Cottage Art Academy in Salt Lake City, run by his former student Susan Gallacher.<\/h4>\n

When he\u2019s not teaching, you\u2019ll find Davis working away in his personal theater, the light dimmed just right, regardless of how blue the skies are outside. \u201cI want to surprise myself, I want to have fun,\u201d he says of the hours he spends each day in the studio. \u201cWhen I know something is really, really good, I\u2019ll notice that I\u2019ve just laughed.\u201d<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2013,\u00a0Paul Davis was selected by 200 of his peers as one of \u201cUtah\u2019s 15 most influential artists.\u201d The following profile appeared in Utah\u2019s 15: The State\u2019s Most Influential Artists, published by Artists of Utah in 2014. Photo by Zoe and Robert Rodriguez.  Paul Davis likes his studio […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36668,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,14],"tags":[1643,1400],"class_list":["post-36667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artist_profiles","category-visual_arts","tag-paul-davis","tag-utahs-15"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/2014_01_27_Paul-Davis-utah-15-for-15bytes-0327-1994-final-edit-AdobeRGB-1200x800.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-01 08:40:58","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36667"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97346,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36667\/revisions\/97346"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}