Allison Davis

I began this project wanting to work with my balsa wood sculptures since I enjoyed how geometric they are. My initial idea was to take photos of them and tesselate the shapes to develop a visually interesting pattern, but after creating a few different versions of the idea, it didn't look pretty and was a hot mess. So, I turned to my favorite piece of the semester, Reclaimed . I combined a photo of the piece with a photo of water and a quote from C.S. Lewis that I love. Playing off of the idea of animal creatures in his Chronicles of Narnia series, I added a little mouse resting on the boat with rain in the background as a whimsical illustration of the brave little mouse living out the quote.

Life in a Suitcase Cardboard, Fabric, Cotton Batting, Spray Glue, Acrylic, Glitter Glue, Paper, Felt, Altered Children's Toys, Altered Children's Clothes 13.5” x 5” x 19” This piece was inspired by the movie The Florida Project (2017). It consists of a cardboard suitcase filled with little girls clothes and eight objects each in some way significant to themes or imagery in the movie. Each object is housed in a piece of clothing, representing how Mooney, the main character, has to compartmentalize pieces of her life even as a child. Some objects are representational, like the felt marijuana leaves and a castle painted purple to resemble the motel Mooney lives in. Other objects are not as straightforward. There is a dollar store mermaid doll that looked similar to the toys Mooney plays with in the bathtub while her mother is in the other room trading sex for money. The doll visually resembles her mother, so I took the mermaid tail off and placed fake hundred dollar b...

Reclaimed Cedarwood, Magnets, Fabric 6.75" x 2.5" x 1.25 My memory is about falling in love on a sailboat. I chose to create my to vaguely resemble a rowboat. The wood as a material is physically present in the memory, and the sturdiness of wood contrasts with the softness of the fabric in the center. The fabric is unattached and is not necessarily a permanent part of the wood. This contrast in texture and permanence reflects the difference in the characteristics of me and the man in my memory. Despite the vastly different materials, they feel similar to the touch. The fabric is soft and the wood was sanded to be smooth and as soft as I could make it. Finally, the magnets not only hold the two pieces together but, as cliche as it is, represent the magnetic attraction I felt to the sailor. In Process Background Research Lenga Clayton Lenga Clayton was one of the artists I used in my research packet and mood board. Mum - Oh How the Boat D...

Lil’ Stinker the Horse Soap 3.25” x 1” x 2.5” 3.5” x 1”  x 3.25” In Process

Architect Balsa wood, Masking tape, Paper, Hot glue 5.5” x 12.5” x 8.25” This piece focuses on space, using cutouts to create an internal space, along with tape strands to define negative space in the piece. Child of an Engineer Balsa wood, Masking tape, Hot glue 5” x 7” x 6.5” This piece focuses on repetition seen through the use of triangles. I developed these two sculptures with the intent that they would be able to stand as individual pieces, but when combined, would form one cohesive sculpture. Individually the pieces are abstract representations of repetition and space, but when put together become reminiscent of an ultra-modern architectural structure. In Process To create the geometric paper elements of Architect , I first created sketches of the shapes I wanted and played around with the dimensions through trial and error. After measuring and drawing shapes out on printer paper, I taped the individual shapes together and folded them up to ...

Not Quite Made for Walking Masking tape 10.5” x 2.5” x 4.25” In Process

"The body is the primary mode of perceiving scale" My parents passed through town on their way to celebrate their anniversary. We spent the day together and finished it by watching the sunset at the fort, one of my favorite things to do with the people I care about here. As my mom walked in front of me on the wall, I took a photo to capture the moment of us walking around the massive structure together. "The souvenir reduces the public, the monumental, and the three dimensional into the miniature that which can be enveloped by the body" I love digital photos, and physical photos printed later, but Polaroid pictures have a special place in my heart. I usually take my Polaroid camera with me on big adventures and special trips to capture the fun immediately, but sometimes it's just to capture a simple moment like an impromptu stress induced dance party with friends. It takes a moment in time and turns it into a physical object for me to hold o...

"Besides being sexy to most people, head hair protects the brain from the sun's heat and ultraviolet rays, helps to insulate the skull, softens impact, and constantly monitors the world only a hair's breadth away from our body, that circle of danger and romance we allow few people to enter." Hair pg. 87 When reading this sentence, I had the mental image of hair being a kind of halo. Frequently in art,  holy figures are crowned with a halo.  This circle of light acts as shield. Since the halos frequently don't overlap, a set distance is created between the figures in the image. In some ways this happens in day to day life as well. Hair is not something that most individuals permit others to casually touch, like some people do with handshakes or hugs. In this way it creates an unspoken halo of personal space, which I depicted in a literal way, drawing inspiration of holy figures in art of the past.

"Not only do we long to know how fast we can run, how high we can jump, how long we can hold our breath under water - we also like to keep checking these limits regularly to see if they've changed. Why? What difference does it make?" Pain pg. 101-102 After reading this quote from the section discussing pain, I made the very poor decision to not reapply sunscreen at the beach, thinking I'd be fine. I was absolutely wrong and ended up with a horrible sunburn on my back. When I began brainstorming pieces to create, I looked at the quotes I underlined while reading and this one struck me since it very much mimicked my reality. I chose to create this piece as a print because it would allow me to produce the exact same image as many times as I wanted.  I repeated the image of the female back in red ink three times without reapplying the ink so that the image would fade to mimic how my sunburn faded as it healed. As much as I'd like to think I've learned fro...