Ian Davenport b. 1966

Ian Davenport is a contemporary abstract painter.

Born in Sidcup, Kent, in July 1966, Davenport studied at Goldsmiths' College of Art (1985-88) and now lives and works in London.

Davenport's art is an exploration of line and form in paint. Driven by an enduring fascination with the materiality of paint, his signature technique is to allow the fluid properties of the medium to form compositions of vibrant colours in defined lines across his support. The Artist's intent is evident in the carefully composed series of colours that appear in his paintings, exploring colour relationships and guided by his intuition and decades of experience as a painter. Davenport often uses groups of colours from a historical painting as a reference point to initiate his own sequences. Inherent in his process is the question of how colour gives shape and structure to an image and how it produces rhythm and dynamism in abstract art.

The Artist was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1991. Notable commissions have included paintings for Banque BNP Paribas (their London offices), Southwark Council (for Western Bridge, Bankside), Groucho Club, London, Institute of Mathematics and Statistics (for Warwick University), The New York Times Magazine, Wallpaper Magazine (various), Derwent London (for the QUBE Building, Fitzrovia), Greater London Authority (for the 2012 London Olympics), HANA Building, Singapore, Fabergé and Vistajet (for their flagship aircraft, Global 6000), and most recently Dior, where Davenport designed a collection that was launched at Art Basel Miami in 2016.

His work has been exhibited internationally, and is included in many public collections, such as the Tate, London; The Government Art Collection; Nuffield College, Oxford University; Museum of Modern Art, La Spezia, Italy; Weltkunst Collection, Zurich; Borusan Art Gallery, Istanbul; and the Dallas Museum of Art, Texas. Davenport has exhibited internationally over the past two decades, most recently in solo exhibitions in Geneva, and Saõ Paulo, and in group shows such including the Royal Academy, London (2015). Davenport’s first extensive monograph was published by Thames and Hudson in 2014. His monumental painting, 'Colourfall', spanning 45 feet, was included in the Giardini of the 2017 Venice Biennale. Davenport will be the subject of a major survey at Dallas Contemporary in the autumn of 2018.