Biography
Benjy Davies grew up in southern Ohio, among the abandoned coal mines of rural Appalachia. When his initial life plan of being an internationally famous rock star didn’t pan out, he switched to painting and printmaking, receiving a BFA from The Ohio State University in 1995 and an MFA from Ohio University in 2000.
His work has been included in over 100 exhibitions nationally and internationally, including the McNeese, Bradley, Parkside, Harper, and Northern National Exhibitions, and is represented in several public collections including The Amity Art Foundation, The Ohio State University and The City of Vaasa, Finland. He taught printmaking, drawing, and computer art at Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia, University of Rio Grande in Rio Grande, Ohio, and Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.
Currently, he teaches Graphic Design and Printmaking at the University of Rio Grande, and runs Lucky Man Press in Gallipolis, Ohio.
Statement
My work is a running commentary on the absurdity, tenderness, fear and confusion that characterize my life with small children. I struggle with the difficulty and uncertainty of fatherhood, I rejoice and marvel at the awakening of a human spirit and I grieve for the turmoil and pain that comes from growing up and growing old. Much of the work is inspired by the unpredictable imagination and irrational fears of childhood, which serve as an allegory for the unpredictable imagination and irrational fears of adulthood.
Visually, I am influenced by printmakers Vija Celmins, Mary Cassat, M.C. Escher, Francisco Goya and Kathe Kollwitz, painters Alex Katz, David Hockney, Chuck Close and Lucian Freud, and children’s book illustrators Margret and H. A. Rey (Curious George), Virginia Lee Burton (Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel), and Taro Yashima (Crow Boy).