Artist: Sarah Davidson
Exhibition title: Swamp Sight
Venue: Wil Aballe Art Projects | WAAP, Vancouver, Canada
Date: January 8 – February 19, 2022
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Wil Aballe Art Projects | WAAP, Vancouver
Working primarily between drawing and painting, Sarah Davidson creates compositions in which shadowy, biomorphic figures and delicate, foliated fragments mingle. Making reference to a history of discourses constructing the ‘natural’ world, their works investigate bodies, environment, observation, and the tangled strings which often bind them together. While they often draw directly from ‘nature’, their drawings diffract distinctions between embodied self and other through a queer ecological lens: critters and space collapse in upon one another, suggesting a permeable web. Both the eye and the mind work towards the known–animals, plants, brush marks, lines–but are caught in a space of undoing.
In Swamp Sight, Davidson weaves a world of uncanny connections around the act of looking. Frog, moth, and human eyeballs all appear to regard the viewer and each other. Drawn partly from observation, these works depart from natural history illustration to swim towards a strange new form of camouflage. A question floats among the forms: who’s seeing who, and how?
Sarah Davidson (she/they, b. 1989, Ottawa) lives and works in Tkaronto/Toronto, Canada. She has exhibited her work at Feuilleton (Los Angeles), Cassandra Cassandra (Toronto), Erin Stump Projects (Toronto), Unit 17 (Vancouver), The Power Plant (Toronto), Little Sister (Toronto), Birch Contemporary (Toronto), The New Gallery (Calgary), and Audain Gallery (Vancouver), among others. She was a finalist in the 2018 RBC Canadian Painting Competition, and is the recipient of awards and residencies including the Canada Council for the Arts Research and Creation Grant (2021), The Banff Centre’s Late Winter BAiR (2020), and AiR Sandnes residency in Sandnes, Norway (2016). She holds a BFA from Emily Carr University of Art & Design (2015) and an MFA from the University of Guelph (2019).
Sarah Davidson, Swamp Sight, 2022, exhibition view, Wil Aballe Art Projects | WAAP, Vancouver
Sarah Davidson, Swamp Sight, 2022, exhibition view, Wil Aballe Art Projects | WAAP, Vancouver
Sarah Davidson, Swamp Sight, 2022, exhibition view, Wil Aballe Art Projects | WAAP, Vancouver
Sarah Davidson, Swamp Sight, 2022, exhibition view, Wil Aballe Art Projects | WAAP, Vancouver
Sarah Davidson, Swamp Sight, 2022, exhibition view, Wil Aballe Art Projects | WAAP, Vancouver
Sarah Davidson, Swamp Sight, 2022, exhibition view, Wil Aballe Art Projects | WAAP, Vancouver
Sarah Davidson, Swamp Sight, 2022, exhibition view, Wil Aballe Art Projects | WAAP, Vancouver
Sarah Davidson, Swamp Sight, 2022, exhibition view, Wil Aballe Art Projects | WAAP, Vancouver
Sarah Davidson, Swamp Sight, 2022, exhibition view, Wil Aballe Art Projects | WAAP, Vancouver
Sarah Davidson, Swamp Sight, 2022, exhibition view, Wil Aballe Art Projects | WAAP, Vancouver
Sarah Davidson, Swamp Sight, 2022, exhibition view, Wil Aballe Art Projects | WAAP, Vancouver
Sarah Davidson, Swamp Sight, 2022, exhibition view, Wil Aballe Art Projects | WAAP, Vancouver
Sarah Davidson, Swamp Sight, 2022, exhibition view, Wil Aballe Art Projects | WAAP, Vancouver
Sarah Davidson, Mothweb, 2021, Watercolour, ink, pencil crayon and pastel on paper 37.5 x 42.5 in (95.3 x 108 cm)
Sarah Davidson, untitled, 2021, Dye, cotton twill, fitness ball 26 in diameter (66 cm)
Sarah Davidson, untitled, 2021, Dye, cotton twill, fitness ball 22 in diameter (55.9 cm)
Sarah Davidson, Saccade, 2020, Watercolour, ink, and pencil crayon on paper 19.5 x 14 in (49.5 x 35.6 cm)
Sarah Davidson, Burn, 2021, Watercolour, ink, and pencil crayon on paper 12 x 18 in (30.5 x 45.7 cm
Sarah Davidson, Dizziness, 2021, Watercolour, ink, and pencil crayon on paper 12 x 17.5 in (30.5 x 44.5 cm)
Sarah Davidson, Blue Drop, 2021, Watercolour, ink, pencil crayon and pastel on paper 63 x 50 in (160 x 127 cm
Sarah Davidson, untitled, 2021, Dye, cotton twill, fitness ball 22 in diameter (55.9 cm
Sarah Davison, Leaf Tender, 2021, Watercolour, ink, and pencil crayon on paper 11.5 x 7.5 in (29.2 x 19.1 cm
Sarah Davidson, untitled, 2021, Dye, cotton twill, fitness ball 22 in diameter (55.9 cm)
Sarah Davidson, Fell, 2021, Watercolour, ink, and pencil crayon on paper 17.5 x 11.75 in (44.5 x 29.8 cm)
Sarah Davidson, The Organism and its Surroundings, 2021 Watercolour, ink, pencil crayon and pastel on paper 63.5 x 47 in (161.3 x 119.4 cm)
Sarah Davidson, Blob Bulb, 2021, Watercolour and pencil crayon on paper 14 x 19 in (35.6 x 48.3 cm)
Sarah Davidson, Look Left, 2021, Watercolour, ink, and pencil crayon on paper 14 x 10 in (35.6 x 25.4 cm)
Sarah Davidson, untitled, 2021, Dye, cotton twill, fitness ball 26 in diameter (66 cm)
Sarah Davidson, untitled, 2021, Dye, cotton twill, fitness ball 26 in diameter (66 cm)
Sarah Davidson, Amphibian Feeling, 2021, Watercolour, ink, pencil crayon and pastel on paper 43.5 x 58.5 in (110.5 x 148.6 cm)
Sarah Davidson, Boundary Waters, 2020, Watercolour, ink, graphite and pencil crayon on paper 12 x 8.5 in (30.5 x 21.6 cm)
Sarah Davidson, Thaw, 2021, Watercolour, ink, and pencil crayon on paper 12 x 15.75 in (30.5 x 40 cm)
Sarah Davidson, Wave, 2020, Watercolour, ink, and pencil crayon on paper 11.75 x 8.5 in (29.8 x 21.6 cm)
