Tess Davies
Tess Davies (formerly Erlenborn) is an artist from Nashville,
Tennessee. She graduated cum laude from Sewanee: The University
of the South with a B.F.A under the honors program in 2014. Her
studio practices include acrylic and oil painting, with a focus on
natural textures, layered spaces and dualities. She takes inspiration
from escapism and biological patterns and forms.
ARTIST STATEMENT
My work is inspired by shared human reactionary tendencies. The
act of painting repeated patterns correlates to our specific way in
which we handle and respond to inevitable traumatic or emotional
occurrences in life. I paint scattered, layered fragments of biologically
inspired patterns, textures, and my surroundings.
My work reveals the way in which we compartmentalize and apply
order and structure to our days, despite life’s inevitabilities. Drawing
on patterns found in diseases, cell growth, and natural phenomena,
I then apply playful, often considered feminine colors and create
compositions that mask and make light of these darker components,
similar to the way we suppress and mask our true feelings and fears.
Oftentimes, I expand the compositions off the confinements of the
canvases to represent the way in which our emotions, or personal
baggage, has a way of revealing itself in unexpected, often unwanted,
ways and breaks out despite our attempts to contain them. The
purpose of my work is to address the problems surrounding the
societally acceptable way to cope.
