Art security guard gets own show

The woodcut collage Happy is among works by Dexter Davis which will be on display in Mather Gallery from January 21 through February 25.

It's not every starving artist who sees the masterpieces of his art heroes -- Pablo Picasso and Willem de Kooning -- on a daily basis. Cleveland artist Dexter Davis walks the corridors where their artworks hang and protectively watches them as a security guard for the Cleveland Museum of Art.

When Mather Gallery opens its African American Heritage Celebration Exhibit at 5 p.m. Friday, January 21, Davis will have his moment in the spotlight. His exhibit, Dexter Davis: New Works on Paper, will continue through February 25.

Gallery hours are from noon to 5 p.m. weekdays. The exhibit, free and open to the public, is in the Thwing Center gallery.

Davis, 34, paints with what he calls "disregards" -- the bits and pieces others cast away. He resurrects them for "a new life" in his emotional and spiritual mixed media works.

The Cleveland native is creating approximately 25 new works for the Mather Gallery celebration of African American contributions to art. "The new year signals a new beginning. This will be the public's first view of these new works," says Davis. "The underlying theme will be one of hope and joy to mark this passage into a new millennium."

While collage is the technical artistic term for Davis' selected art form, he quickly notes that he sees the forgotten wallpaper from a corner of the attic, things people find unnecessary, or even his own past works that he no longer wants as his canvas.

The layers of Davis' work are his journey of subconscious self-expression. "Working with mixed media is a spiritual and therapeutic experience for me," he says.

Davis, who dabbled in art as a child, began his serious study of art in William Martin James' class at West Technical High School in the Cleveland Public Schools and during Saturday classes at the Cleveland Institute of Art. He continued at CIA to earn his B.F.A. in 1990. He has studied at the Lacoste School of Arts in France and had a residency at the Experimental Printmaking Institute at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania.

Davis set out to become an illustrator and graphic artist, but ventured into this more abstract art form.

In his newer art expression, "the viewer will re-create the experience time after time," he says.

Since graduation, he has had solo exhibitions at the Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, the William Busta Gallery, and the Colonial Arcade.

His work also has appeared in recent shows, including the Busta-Fedevich's Club Illusions: Four Young Cleveland Painters (1999); the 1998 Bratenahl Place Annual Exhibition; Drawing as a Cultural Force, an Ashland College show in 1998; and Drawn Together, a 1997 show at the Reinberger Gallery at CIA.

For information about the Mather Gallery exhibit, call 368-2679.

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