Davis Birks
Six works including Reconstructed Landscape 39, 2022, Acrylic paint on salvaged construction ¾” plywood, Dimensions variable. All works courtesy of the artist. © Davis Birks.
Landscapes of blue sky and green fields shatter to pieces, spread out like the fragments of daily life. The fragmented canvases and plywood are necessarily different than they once were, but still create scenes as beautiful as ever. The Reconstructed Landscape series involves painting landscapes on salvaged wood panels that are then destroyed and pieced back together. Though the traditional function of the landscape painting is lost along the way, the results showcase a new and different kind of landscape; it is through this process, preserving the traces the destruction, that the artist speaks to the irreversible nature of time and loss, and also hope. Mexico-based artist Davis Birks (b.1957) explores a variety of themes, including social interrelations, geopolitics, economics, the environment, and history, through the mediums of sculpture, installation, painting, and photography.
