The “Fitz”, 2015

The subtly blended, rectangular blocks of color in Untitled (Fitzgerald) allude to Mark Rothko’s iconic color field paintings. Disrupting the abstract background with identifiable forms and subjects are two small landscapes in the center of the composition that depict LA’s historic Fitzgerald House.

Considered one of the finest mansions in the city when it was built in the West Adams neighborhood in 1903, the house has since fallen into disrepair. Davis’s choice of imagery explores the city’s socioeconomic history—with its vast shifts of concentrated wealth and power over time and space—and highlights the forces of gentrification, urban decay, racism, and ghettoization. The
experience of a Rothko painting is often compared to a spiritual experience derived from undistracted and concentrated viewing. Thus, Davis’s work considers how abstract forms of painting might be brought to bear upon life outside the gallery walls—in the lived landscapes, architecture, and neighborhoods of the city.