KEITH DAVIS

Keith Davis wants to paint all day long. Davis begins work early each morning and works steadily through the evening. He does not long form company. He does not aspire to mingle with others. His greatest companions are his paints and the fully-realized portraits that visit him at each day's end. It is the life he's always dreamed of, the dream he kept and the career he finally gave himself in 2003 after postponing his ambitions for nearly thirty years, through two "warm-up" careers. Davis began painting at the age of 10, after recovering from a nearly fatal case of juvenile hemolytic anemia, which kept him bed-ridden for months. As his father walked him through the waiting room towards the doors of the Lubbock Hospital, Davis was captivated by three doctors' portraits, each painted in oil. Overwhelmed by the beauty and near-photographic quality of each work, he aspired to make art "just as beautiful". No one in his family had painted. With the help of his mother, Davis procured some paints and began painting on his own, which he continued to do all through high school, much to the chagrin of his father, who thought that Davis should be working in a grocery store. Davis first trained and worked as a paramedic for nearly a decade in West Texas. In 1982, he became a barber and moved to Austin. He worked as a barber for twenty years, painting in his off hours. His first shows were in Austin area restaurants almost a decade ago. Since then he has painted and shown his work steadily. Completely self-taught, Davis is a prolific and accomplished painter who continues to be influenced from work that he has seen. In much the same way that he was inspired by the three doctors' portraits, he draws influence from the visual vernacular of other artists including - David Bates, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and John Flaming. Much like those artists, Davis's subjects are drawn from his life, or from popular cultural (musicals, westerns), and his imagination. In addition, his work is at times three-dimensional. Currently he is working on three-dimensional painted sculptures rendered in wood and paint.

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