Margaret Davidson
"Margaret is a jewel of a teacher. She seems able to teach everyone and help us individually with enthusiasm that is contagious."
Margaret Davidson is a sensitive and refined painter who focuses on the world of stilled objects. One of her unique specialties is archaeological illustration--most remarkably, creating detailed basket drawings from almost non-existent, muddy fragments. Her personal work draws from a love of natural history and the pleasures of quiet domesticity. Her drawings and paintings are uncluttered, fresh and beautifully rendered. Ms. Davidson received her BFA from the University of Michigan and her MFA from University of Washington.
Her drawings and paintings have been exhibited in the Bellevue Art Museum, the Smithsonian Institute, the Wing Luke Asian Museum and numerous galleries in the Northwest, currently she is represented at the Edison Eye Gallery, Edison, WA. Her illustration work has been included in over forty publications. She is a member of the Guild of Natural History Illustrators, with whom she exhibits annually.
Ms. Davidson is acclaimed for her systematic approach to teaching the principles of drawing, color theory and watercolor painting. She has taught drawing at the Academy since 1994, and has also taught at Pratt. Her intensive bi-weekly realist drawing classes are typically sold-out, so please register early.
Artist's Statement
I am drawn to the still life genre because it's so subtle. In the still life tradition the person is there, but he or she has just left the room.
You may have noticed that the objects in a still life are always connected to people in some way: things left behind on a table, fruit encased in a bowl or basket, flowers in a vase. Things, however wild in origin, are chosen, picked, netted, or killed and placed in tame domestic surroundings, usually indoors, or at least in a manmade container. The human presence is there, it's just indirect and a little indistinct.
The placement of objects, the spaces between things, the light, the depth, this is where the soul resides in a still life, and the ordinariness of the things which appear in a majority of still lifes suggests the real, everyday soul of humanity. Cloth, for example, is as common as dirt, yet all the laws of the universe were required to make that piece of cloth in the same way as they were to make a planet or a galaxy. Painting that cloth is a celebration of the intrinsic importance and meaning in the ordinary and the everyday.
I am drawn to the still life genre because it's so subtle. In the still life tradition the person is there, but he or she has just left the room.
You may have noticed that the objects in a still life are always connected to people in some way: things left behind on a table, fruit encased in a bowl or basket, flowers in a vase. Things, however wild in origin, are chosen, picked, netted, or killed and placed in tame domestic surroundings, usually indoors, or at least in a manmade container. The human presence is there, it's just indirect and a little indistinct.
The placement of objects, the spaces between things, the light, the depth, this is where the soul resides in a still life, and the ordinariness of the things which appear in a majority of still lifes suggests the real, everyday soul of humanity. Cloth, for example, is as common as dirt, yet all the laws of the universe were required to make that piece of cloth in the same way as they were to make a planet or a galaxy. Painting that cloth is a celebration of the intrinsic importance and meaning in the ordinary and the everyday.