Artwork Page for Black Heads

Details / Information for Black Heads

Series Title: War Series

Black Heads

2010

Dexter Davis

(American, b. 1965)
Culture
America, Ohio, Cleveland
Medium
collage of prints (woodcut, etching and aquatint, stencil, and Xerox), charcoal, marker, crayon, pastel, gesso, paint, and found objects
Support
Heavy weight machine-made Lennox paper
Measurements
Sheet: 126.5 x 96.6 cm (49 13/16 x 38 1/16 in.)
Credit Line
Dudley P. Allen Fund 2011.38
Copyright
© Dexter Davis
This artwork is known to be under copyright.
Location
Not on view
Print

Description

Black Heads depicts a monster whose one eye is a target. Embryos float above a row of sharp teeth, their innate innocence corrupted by the gun inside of each. Incorporated into the top of the collage is a portion of Icarus, a print by H. Carroll Cassill, Davis’s printmaking instructor at the Cleveland Institute of Art. It was salvaged from a fire that destroyed almost all of Davis’s work and possessions. In Greek mythology Daedalus fashioned wings from feathers and wax for his son, Icarus, warning him not to fly too close to the sun. Icarus ignored his father’s advice and fell to his death as the wax melted. "The symbolism of the story and its parallel with my own life was scary," Davis said. "But I am still trying to reach the heavens."
A vertically oriented, densely layered collage of prints and charcoal features a central face with a large red-and-black eye. Below, several black splayed hands stretch across a horizontal band of jagged white patterns. The bottom section contains floating, dark-toned heads and white gun silhouettes against a fractured background. Jagged black strokes frame the top and bottom borders. Splashes of red, orange, and blue punctuate the textured, predominantly grayscale composition.

Black Heads

2010

Dexter Davis

(American, b. 1965)
America, Ohio, Cleveland

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