The works of Ian Davenport bear witness to a structural and analytic approach to painting. Each piece reveals his inclination to set up investigative procedures leading him to explore the properties of the medium. The use made of color and paint seeks a sculptural approach to the work; the act of painting is physical and the color asserts itself as a solid material.
Despite the seductive aspect of the material he uses – an industrial enamel – Davenport attempts to free us from any illusory emotion. His paintings constantly refer back to their mechanical process of creation. The palette is composed of a range of colors varying from pastel pink or electric blue to yellow, purple, or intense red. The use of house paint expresses the refusal of interpretation, and reveals the attachment to the painting as object. In this work, the physical process of the act of painting and the materiality of the paint block off the viewer’s habitual references and associations.

Each of Davenport’s paintings is a combination of two contrasting colours, either pure or subtley nuanced. The paintings are carried out in three phases. First a ground colour is sprayed onto an aluminium or fiberboard panel. Once dry, he pours the second colour onto this monochrome ground, forming a naturally occuring circular or eliptical shape, before tilting the surface so that excess paint runs off leaving the remaining surface to dry. He repeats the procedure using the initial colour but stops the spreading movement just short of the area covered by the first pour. A tense sinous line occurs, arching through a field of unmodulated colour, an extraordinary elegance out of a set of basic physical gestures. The control necessary to make these works contrasts with the random nature of his materials. The artist is concerned with chance and this procedure allows him to observe the limitations and transformations of the liquid.