John Davis (16 September 1936 – 17 October 1999) was an Australian sculptor and pioneer of

environmental art Environmental art is a range of artistic practices encompassing both historical approaches to nature in art and more recent ecological and politically motivated types of works. Environmental art has evolved away from formal concerns, for example ...

Early life

Born in

Ballarat Ballarat ( ) is a city in the Central Highlands (Victoria), Central Highlands of Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia. At the 2021 Census, Ballarat had a population of 116,201, making it the third largest city in Victoria. Estimated resid ...

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

, Australia, Davis traces the development of his work from the early wood carvings produced while he was a young man living in Mildura in the early 1960s. He studied at the

Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology RMIT University, officially the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology,, section 4(b) is a public research university in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1887 by Francis Ormond, RMIT began as a night school offering classes in art, scienc ...

, Caulfield institute of technology and Melbourne Teachers College before becoming a lecturer in sculpture at Prahran College of Advanced Education 1972 - c. 1992.

Work

An Australian exponent of Arte Povera, he famously developed a new mode of

site-specific art Site-specific art is artwork created to exist in a certain place. Typically, the artist takes the location into account while planning and creating the artwork. Site-specific art is produced both by commercial artists, and independently, and can ...

at the Mildura Sculpture Triennial in the early 1970s. His most influential work, which was entitled ''Tree Piece'', was made by encasing the trunks of several growing trees on the banks of the Murray River with, alternately, papier mache, mud, latex, coiled string, plastic cling wrap, and twigs bound together. The impermanent work was then allowed to weather and rot away. It was a breakthrough which led many sculptors to reconsider the fate of outdoor works, and whether the fabrication of art might in some way adversely impact on the environment. Taking his cues from Aboriginal artefacts, Davis later became chiefly known for tender assembled works made of natural materials, including leaves and twigs, intended to highlight the fragile beauty of nature. His sculpture, ''Bicycle II'' (1976), was purchased by the

National Gallery of Australia The National Gallery of Australia (NGA), formerly the Australian National Gallery, is the national art museum of Australia as well as one of the largest art museums in Australia, holding more than 166,000 works of art. Located in Canberra in th ...

Teaching

Davis taught first in regional high schools, then was hired to teach sculpture in 1972 at

Prahran College The Prahran College of Advanced Education, formerly Prahran College of Technology, was a late-secondary and tertiary institution with a business school, a trade school, and a multi-disciplinary art school that dated back to the 1860s, populated ...

where

Fred Cress Frederick Harold Cress (10 July 1938 – 14 October 2009) was a British painter who migrated to Australia and won the Archibald Prize in 1988 with a portrait of John Stanley Beard, John Beard. Cress was born in Pune, Poona, British Raj, but w ...

had been employed by Principal Alan Warren in 1969 to set up what would become Prahran's foundation year in Art & Design with the support of Gordon Leviston. Cress, who had previously begun a similar program at Caulfield Tech brought Victor Majzner and Davis across from Caulfield. Davis was Head of Sculpture from 1973, when his moving the sculpture department from the ground to the top floor of the Art and Design building caused some dissatisfaction amongst some students who continued to study on the ground floor in the ceramics and the work shop complex under lecturer Caroline May. David Wilson joined his staff also that year and took over as Head when Davis left in 1982 for the

Victorian College of the Arts The Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) is the arts school at the University of Melbourne in Australia. It is part of the university's Faculty of Fine Arts and Music. It is located near the Melbourne city centre on the Southbank campus of the ...

. In his final appointment Davis was Coordinator of Post Graduate Studies at the Victorian College of the Arts for many years.

Early life

Work

Teaching

Exhibitions

See also

References

Sources

Further reading