SOMEWHERE IN AFRICA #4 Painting

American born James Davis raised in a small town on the northwest side of South Carolina and moved to New York City the weekend after he finished high school. He studied fashion photography at the Fashion Institute of Technology and photo illustration at the School of Visual Arts in New York City during 1976-1978. After completing his studies at these prestigious design and art schools, he refined his talent by working as an assistant fashion photographer. 1980 he launched his career as a photographer with his agent. He moved to Sweden in the winter of 2004 with his Swedish wife and with over 20 years of photography experiences behind the camera. In 1995 he started to create photo collages for the first time as a hobby. Using his own photos he would cut them up and glued those onto acrylic painted art papers that he had pre-painted as the backgrounds. Upon relocation to Sweden in 2004 he had very little spare time from his photography jobs to continue with his collage art. In August 2016 he had more time to pursue his collage work again with more enthusiasm than before with a new burst of energy. Not so convinced of his artist skills as a collage artist, he didn’t think much of his creations. While showing his collection to a close friend who asked if she could buy one of his collages and commissioned him to create a collage from photos that he had taken of her. Upon presenting the finished work of her, she loved them and decided to buy more of his works. He continued to work with his newly discovered art between photo assignments. Feeling as if something was missing, he searched book stores for inspiration and discovered a book about the period of Dada that was organized in 1916. He found a book of the famous German photomontage artist Hannah Höch. Her art work and his had something in common, they both distorted people appearances to make them look different and witty. There’s a story behind every interesting photo, however he don’t always care to verbally tell those stories. To him it’s more interesting when the art or photos can speak and tell its own story. In 2012 he published his first book “Southern Roots” that consist of images that reflected his roots in South Carolina. In 2013 he published his second photo book of nudes and white flowers titled “Secret Side of James Davis” which took him over ten years to shoot and produce.