Julyan Davis is an English-born artist and writer who has painted the American South for thirty years. He received his art training at the Byam Shaw School of Art in London. In 1988, having completed his B.A. in painting and printmaking, he traveled to the South on a painting trip that was also fueled by an interest in the history of Demopolis, Alabama and its settling by Bonapartist exiles.
Davis now lives in Asheville, North Carolina. His work is exhibited internationally, and is in many public and private collections. Recent acquisitions include the Gibbes Museum in Charleston, the Greenville County Museum of Art (South Carolina), the Morris Museum (Augusta, GA), the Duke Endowment and the North Carolina Governor’s Mansion. Davis’s debut novel ‘A History of Saints’ was a 2022 semifinalist for the Thurber Prize.
FULL ARTIST’S RESUME
SELECTED SHOWS
2024 ‘Inside Out’ Group Show, Florence museum of art, Florence, SC.
2024 ‘American Ghosts’ Evoke Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM.
2023 ‘American Ghosts’ Blue Spiral 1 Asheville, NC.
2023 ‘American Ghosts’ Helena Fox Fine Art, Charleston, SC.
2022 ‘The View from Here’ Morris Museum of Art
2021 ‘Cymbee’ Record Release (Collaboration with Glenis Redmond) Citizen Vinyl, Asheville, NC.
2019 Appalshop 50th Anniversary (Touring Show) Whitesburg, KY.
2019 Mars Hill University (Murder Ballad Touring Show) Mars Hill, NC.
2019 Arcadia Contemporary (Group Show) Pasadena, CA.
2019 ‘Go Wild’ (Group Show) Gormley’s Fine Art, Dublin and Belfast.
2018 ‘Visions of Venus’ Zhou B. Art Center, Chicago, IL.
2018 ‘Vanishing Charleston’ (Group show) Gibbes Museum of Art.
2018 Visiting Artist. Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, SC.
2017 Lyon Hall, Demopolis, AL. ( ‘Demopolis’ Series for Bicentennial).
2017 Bascom Museum, Highlands, NC (‘Demopolis’ Series).
2015 Spartanburg Art Museum (Murder Ballad Tour) Spartanburg, SC.
2014 Myrtle Beach Museum of Art (Murder Ballad Touring Show).
2013 Morris Museum of Art (Murder Ballad Touring Show) Augusta, GA.
2012 Greenville Museum of Art (Murder Ballads) Greenville, SC.
2012 Hickory Museum of Art (group show)
2012 Helena Fox Fine Art, Charleston, SC.
2011 The Bascom Art Museum, Highlands, NC.
2009 Scope Art Fair, Miami/Amsterdam/London
2009 Tinney Contemporary, Nashville, TN
2009 Greenhut Galleries, Portland, Maine.
2009 Art London, London, UK.
2008 Mauger Modern Art, Bath, UK
2007 Carolina Galleries, Charleston, SC.
2007 Mason Murer Gallery, Atlanta, GA.
2004 John Tucker Fine Art, Savannah, GA.
2001 Southern Vermont Arts Center, Manchester, VT.
1998 Francis Kyle Gallery, London.
1997 Entergy Building, New Orleans, LA.
1995 First Street Gallery, New York, NY.
1995 Atlantic Gallery, Washington, DC.
1994 Mistral Gallery, London.
1993 Gadsden Arts Center, Gadsden, AL.
1988 Poole Art Center, Poole, Dorset.
DOCUMENTARIES
‘Days of Exile’ A film by David Poag 2020
‘Pollination’ A film by Polly Schattel 2019
‘In the Studio: Julyan Davis’ Short film by Bill Green 2023
‘American Ghosts: The Performance’ Short film by Bill Green 2023
EDUCATION
1984-1985 Filton College, Bristol. (Art Foundation Course)
1985-1988 Byam Shaw School of Art, London. (B.A. Painting and Printmaking)
SELECTED COLLECTIONS
Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, SC.
Asheville Museum of Art, Asheville, NC.
Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, SC.
Morris Museum, Augusta, GA.
Governor’s Mansion, Raleigh, NC
The Duke Endowment, Charlotte, NC
Sloss Furnaces National Historic Monument, Birmingham, AL.
Birmingham Southern College, Birmingham, AL.
University of Montevallo, Montevallo, AL.
Samford University, Birmingham, AL.
Bascom Fine Art Center, Highlands, NC.
Reviews and Publications:
The Santa Fe Literary Review 2024
The Nassau Literary Review 2024
Southern Cultures: Center for the Study of the American South 2023
Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel Literary Journal 2023
‘The View from Here’ Catalogue Morris Museum of Art 2022
‘Eggs and Marrowbone- the Art of the Murder Ballad’ Book 2019 (Rotterdam)
Blue Ridge Public Radio, 2019/20
Bluegrass Today Magazine 2015
Combustus Magazine (Online) 2015
Bluegrass Review Magazine 2015
Sing Out Magazine 2014
Crazyhorse Literary Journal (cover) 2014
Aiken Standard 2013
‘12 WNC Notables’ by Jack Prather 2012
Painting Perceptions (Online Art magazine) 2012
Nashville Arts Magazine 2010
Kiawah Legends Magazine 2010
Our State Magazine (NC) 2009
Carolina Home and Garden 2009
Garden and Gun Magazine 2007
Carolina Arts Magazine 2005
Asheville Citizen-Times 2001
Birmingham News 2001
Bangor Daily News 2000
Savannah Morning Post 2000
Times-Picayune 1996
Memphis Commercial Appeal 1994
Podcasts:
Story Made Podcast 2023
Citizen Vinyl ‘Cymbee’ Record release Interview with Glenis Redmond 2021
Art Grind Podcast (Episode 77) 2022
The Savvy Painter’ with Antrese Wood 2017
Interview with John Dalton 2018 and 2020
CONTACT:
julyandavis@gmail.com
828 450 1422
Documentary by Polly Schattel:
Documentary by David Poag
‘Thirty years in America have given me many opportunities; to discover lost stories, to explore rich connections to my own history, and to collaborate with extraordinary people. I began as a journalist working in paint, following in the tradition of so many immigrant artists (from Audobon, Bierdstadt and Cole all the way to photographers like Robert Frank and filmmaker Billy Wilder). The New World has a long legacy of inspiration.
A decade ago, I returned to a parallel love- narrative painting. My father was a novelist. He instilled in me a passion for storytelling. My mother’s father was a poet and historian. From him I learned that I was, as an artist, “a citizen of the world.” He taught me to read history voraciously, and to find there the folklore and tales that speak to the present.
COLLABORATION
Narrative painting opened new doors for me. Although I enjoy the solitude of the artist as both outsider and observer, I have always envied those arts where collaboration creates a sum greater than its parts. The Ballad series has allowed me to work with traditional musicians, young and old, throughout Appalachia, with historian Richard Underwood (‘Crimesong: True Crime Stories from Southern Murder Ballads’) and with domestic abuse organizations in the region.
The Demopolis series connected me to historians from Alabama to Texas, while the Mermaid Storm project connects the powerful poetry of Glenis Redmond to the research of historian Ras Michael Brown
“I paint for storytellers- novelists, songwriters, poets. I also paint for those who love history. There has always been a narrative thread in my work. Even when a scene was notably empty of incident, I have strived for a sense that something vital happened here, or that something will”.