Colin Davis

I n s t i n c t i v e A r t
Catch a glimps of some Art on the run in Armagh


'Prussian Mist': Inked Lithographic Plate by Colin Davis

My teenager phoned from school in Armagh today, not feeling well. I arranged for her to leave early and picked her up for a bit of art therapy! She was whipped into the car and into the Armagh Market Place Theatre Gallery - for a quicky. It was just round the corner of the school, and how could we let such an opportunity pass us by? I'm not so sure she was very impressed with me, but I did put her in bed with a hot cup of sweet tea when we returned home

And the art? The exhibition was named 'Animal Instinct', featuring eighteen paintings, drawings and prints by Lurgan-born artist Colin Davis. Just listen to some of the titles:

…Spirited Journey ...Final Lap ...Blue Spirit ...Solitary Flight ...The pursuit...

My poor listless girl must have felt very miserable, looking at the energy and life oozing from the pictures on the wall. She did pick up, though, when we started analysing what we saw. Her commentary started off with 'this is boring' and grew into a proper critical appraisal:

‘What’s he painting with? It looks like... yes, charcoal’
‘He uses the same image over and over’
‘It’s messy’
‘I like that one most - it looks like it's moving more than the others’
‘This foot bothers me, sticking out like it's out of proportion’

There you go - the harshest art critics on this planet must be teenagers. The one she liked best was number two, ‘Final Lap’. The artist used the same three images for a number of different versions in technique, colouring and intensity. There was the sprinting canine - which we both loved - the running horse and the elk. I loved the elk; he seemed caught in a moment of fright or surprise, tangled in blotches of paint and angry dirt smearts. It was the running horse that Alana had problems with, since its one front leg jutted out unnaturally, making it look rather stationary for the overall theme of dynamic movement.

I played counsellor to the sick by leading her to one unique print of a blue mare's head, her ears flattened and her eyeball glistening white through the layers of scratches and ominous deposits of blue ink (or paint, I can't be sure). Number eighteen, it was, entitled ‘Equus I'.

I said in her ear:

'See, my darling, how frightened and angry she looks... as if she's desperate to escape from the oil and pigment, causing splashes of midnight blue to splat in all directions... look how she kicked and scratched the paper'

Well, I had to make it compelling and captivating for the darling little philistine! So shoot me.

To be fair, I loved the tactile and vivid quality of the art. It made me long to get in there and get dirty, dropping greasy fingerprints all over, as the artist had done... very warm, human and personal.

It reminded me of the San rock art in the Western Cape's Cederberg… the way those shamans observed the animals, displaying a very intimate and close relationship with their brothers in arms. Only a few well-drawn lines could tell a whole story of movement, chase, fear... dynamic lines etched permanently into rock, to outlast their creators for decades, centuries.

To close, let me quote the artist himself (from the printed 'artist statement')

‘...my work has been preoccupied with the elements of atmosphere, space and dramatic lighting found within confined internalised spaces’

'...introduce a further dimension, a feeling of movement... the dynamic of an animal as it disturbs the parameters of the other qualities. These movements are implied by abstract gestures and surface markings, at times very intense and erratic'

'...not solely purely acurate representations of Animals but are concerned more with their movement as metaphor for the life and energy we all possess.'


Colin Davis' 'Animal Instinct' is on until the 29th of May 2005 at The Market Theatre and Arts Centre, Armagh.

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