Come join me, as I discuss my meager beginnings as an amusement park airbrush artist, my graphic design work and the personal journey that evolved into fine art. I will talk in-depth about the history, process and philosophy behind the paintings and drawings of the Parishioner Series exhibition. It should be a glorious time.

And if you act now, the first 200 people that mention this blog post, will receive their choice of free hookers, booze, an iPod Nano or parking. Actually, all the stuff that I just mentioned is on back-order, except for the parking. So if you show up...free parking!!! Hey, for you, I go out of my way to please.

Thursday, October 18, 2007 — 6:00pm
Admission to the talk is free and open to the public.

The Dayton Art Institute
456 Belmonte Park North
Dayton, Ohio 45405

Labels: museums, The Dayton Art Institute, Tom Davie

Although my exhibition at the DAI had been open for three weeks, the opening reception was the first time I saw the work installed in the space. I thought the arrangement and scale of the work looked good for the gallery, although it was slightly disappointing that a few of the pieces had to be cut to keep the show from looking over-hung. Two of my newer paintings were withheld from the show, so since you can’t see them at the museum, I’ll post them for you here.



My work and website have been popping-up on random art sites and blogs lately, but one I’d like to mention by name is artistaday.com. It’s a blog site run by a really nice guy named Geoff, who featured me as artist of the day on Monday. He even dug my work so much, he bought a print from my shop — so for that alone, I need to give him props. Check out his site, browse through the artists, vote on my work (and everyone else’s) and if you’re an artist, send him a link to your site so he can check you out.

Tom Davie at artistaday.com

I recently added ten paintings and five drawings from the Parishioner Series to the studiotwentysix2 shop. I’ve wanted to add the work for a while now, but had to wait until the final work was selected for the exhibition. The work can be purchased through either the Parishioner Series site or the studiotwentysix2 shop. Speaking of the Parishioner Series site, I have added several new paintings to it, including the two shown above.


Here’s an article about my current exhibition from the Dayton City Paper:


One final tidbit, last week, I recorded a segment with Dayton NPR talking about religion and my current work. The segment is supposed to air either next week or the week after — so I will post a link to the mp3 file once it is up on their site. I’ll write about this experience in detail because there’s a good story behind it, but I’ll wait until you are able to hear the finished segment.

Labels: artist, artistaday.com, blog, fine art, Parishioner Series, The Dayton Art Institute, Tom Davie, update

As a loyal blog reader, you are welcome to attend the opening reception of my current exhibition at The Dayton Art Institute. Hope to see you there.

Thursday, September 6, from 6:00 – 8:00pm
Opening remarks at 6:30pm

456 Belmonte Park North
Dayton, OH 45405

Labels: artist, fine art, Parishioner Series, The Dayton Art Institute, Tom Davie

The first article reviewing my current exhibition at the Dayton Art Institute was released in Saturday’s Dayton Daily News — it seems that the article was also published by a handful of other regional newspapers.

I thought they made an interesting choice to have the Religion editor conduct the interview, and to include the story in the Faith / Living section, as opposed to the Entertainment / Arts section. I have yet to decide if this is a good or bad thing. Anyway, check it out.

Parishioner Series Article

Labels: article, Dayton Daily News, fine art, Parishioner Series, The Dayton Art Institute, Tom Davie

Finally...The work has been delivered to the museum, is currently being installed and the exhibition will open to the public on Saturday. I was so close to missing the deadline with the final painting that I was scared to properly wrap it, for fear the recently applied paint would adhere to the plastic during transport. It’s been a few days now, and I never received the dreaded “Um, one of your paintings was destroyed when we took the packing off” call, so I can only assume everything’s a-okay. The image below contains all the splendiferous details, including the reception and lecture times and dates.


Here is the museum’s write-up about my work / exhibition:

Tom Davie’s haunting and evocative images offer an introspective view into the artist’s thoughts on faith, salvation, mortality, and above all, Catholicism. The portraits included in The Parishioner Series are taken from a single edition of the St. Mary’s parish directory in Sandusky, Ohio. “The parishioners are members of the small religious community to which I belonged as a child and young adult, and the 1974 church directory was chosen because it represents the year I was born into this group,” Davie explained. “I have a great deal of respect for this community founded in religion, however, my personal struggles with faith, religious power and mortality prevent me from fully embracing the ideals of my youth.”

Reflecting the influence of Chuck Close, Andy Warhol, and Francis Bacon, Davie’s powerful images offer their own unique graphic signature. Highly stylized and finely crafted, these meticulously hand-painted works are composed of a complex matrix of dots. Layers of transparent washes applied to the canvas’s surface conceal the subtle and fragmentary textual imagery. “As the concept behind my work has become more focused, the layering and complexity have gradually increased,” stated Davie.

There is an uncanny family resemblance among the paintings and drawings in The Parishioner Series. This homogeneity is disconcerting, enhanced by the narrative tension created by such titles as Revelation (Mr. Carl and Mrs. Evelyn D. Bing, 1974); He Shall Inherit (Mr. Leander Bertsch, 1974); They were Judged (Mr. Edwin Hiss, 1974); and His Anger was Kindled (Mr. Edwin Hiss, 1974). “To me these individuals represent righteousness and unwavering devotion -- a uniform belief under the same doctrine,” said Davie.

Tom Davie earned his Master of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Dayton.

The Parishioner Series at The Dayton Art Institute

Labels: artist, fine art, museums, Parishioner Series, The Dayton Art Institute, Tom Davie

I realize it’s been slower than normal around here the last month or so, which is unfortunate, because I enjoy being slightly irreverent, showing the goodies I’ve found and often times just blowing off steam. Anyway, I didn’t post two weeks ago because I took some time off to visit friends, family and to attend my cousin’s wedding.

My cousin, who I lost touch with over the years, is huge — and by huge, I mean long. I’m not exactly short, measuring in at just a shade below 6'2". I’m guessing though, that my cousin eclipsed me by a good two inches, which would make it a safe 6'4". This doesn’t seem exceptionally large until you factor in that my cousin is a 23 year-old girl. In addition to the 6'4", stick her in a flowing wedding gown, add some 3-inch heels, and you have one “not-gonna-miss-her” senorita. All I know is next time I start shit at a Davie family reunion, I know who I want having my back. Okay, enough with the family gossip, on to the updates:

Dayton Art Institute exhibition

I just had my final walk-through at the Dayton Art Institute museum yesterday. Everything for the exhibition is now pretty much set. My exhibition will consist of approximately 20 paintings and 8 drawings — a good portion of the work will be showing for the first time.

Some of the paintings and drawings that will be in the exhibition are posted on my Parishioner Series site. I have however, been purposely holding back work in order to give everyone that can, a reason to come see the exhibition.

A little over two months ago, I started a new body of paintings. These paintings focus on Catholic clergy, and are significantly different in style from the rest of The Parishioner Series. The new works are heavily influenced by my design background, and have a playful, but refined sense of color, and I have consciously chosen to avoid using black in any of these paintings. At first glance, they appear somewhat harmless, but they are without a doubt more sinister and judgmental than the other work.

To this point, only my girlfriend has seen the completed and stretched canvases — I have even gone so far as to only show the museum curator studies of the final pieces. I plan on showing four of these new paintings in the exhibition, and because of the use of clergy as imagery, the museum has refused to use any of these works in promoting the exhibition, for fear that Catholic groups will disrupt the show. If you want to see them, be sure to plan a trip to the museum. I will post the exhibition opening and reception dates next week.

Design Publications

It seems I’ve been getting a lot of love from China lately. At the end of the month, a Chinese art and design magazine will be featuring yours truly in a super-dope article. Each issue of the bi-monthly magazine focuses on one international artist or design studio, and does a large, several-spread article featuring the philosophy of the designer and an ample showing of work. I sent them more than 25 images, so here’s hoping the article turns out really strong.

Also on the Asian front, I’ve been asked to contribute work to a 2-volume hardback design almanac. Asian design is the primary focus, but a group of international designers have been asked to contribute to the book as well. The book will be introduced in October at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Again, I’ll post images and more information about the publications, as I receive my complimentary copies.

Client Work

A few weeks ago, I was asked to contribute two design concepts to Upper Deck, which is in the process redesigning their line of 2007-08 NBA trading cards. There were a few layout hurdles to get around, such as a HUGE price violator and quite a bit of text to work into the design, but overall, it was a fun project to work on. I can’t show anything for proprietary reasons, but maybe in a few months, I can roll out what I came up with.

So as you can see, I’ve been pretty busy lately — I’m hoping all the upcoming exposure will bust this one-man venture wide open.

Labels: studiotwentysix2, The Dayton Art Institute, update

The rumor has been leaking for months, and Sara Pearce of the Cincinnati Enquirer may let the cat out of the bag in Sunday’s paper, so here it is — I have been invited to exhibit The Parishioner Series at the Dayton Art Institute museum.

The work will be shown as a solo exhibition in the museum’s Regional Artist’s Gallery, running from mid-July through mid-December, 2007. The curator for Contemporary American art and I, are in the process of selecting which works will be included in the exhibition. It has been determined that the questionnaire book (which is described in the previous post titled, “Help!”) will be included as part of the exhibition, assuming enough people respond.

I will post additional information about the exhibition as it becomes available.

Labels: Parishioner Series, Sara Pearce, The Dayton Art Institute, Tom Davie