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Sally Davies | |
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Born | |
Education | New York City Program, Ontario College of Art and Design |
Known for | Photographer, Painter |
Awards | New York City Council Citation, 2014 |
Website | http://www.sallydaviesphoto.com |
Sally Davies (born 1956 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada) is a Canadian painter and photographer, living and working in New York City's East Village since 1983. [1]
Davies made the "Lucky Paintings" and "Lucky Chairs" paintings in the 1990s, exhibiting at the OK Harris Gallery, and then at the Gracie Mansion Gallery. Following the Lucky Paintings were the "tattoo paintings", "product paintings", and the "furniture paintings". [2]
Davies simultaneously began to photograph the East Village in the 1980s alongside her painting career. In the mid-1990s she had a fire in her loft on Avenue A and lost almost all her negatives to that date. [3]
In 2000 Davies had her first solo photography exhibit at the Gracie Mansion Gallery in the East Village. The Alien Photos served as a visual bridge between her paintings and her photography. [3] The final large-scale images consisted of dioramas that she constructed to house the 6-inch alien dolls in Barbie clothes in domestic situations. [1]
Davies has been photographing New York City's Lower East Side since 1983. [4] She received a New York City Council Citation on February 6, 2014 from Rosie Mendez for her ongoing documenting of the Lower East Side, and the neighborhood's socio-economic changes. [1]
Davies exhibited these photographs at the now-closed Bernarducci Meisel Gallery in New York City, in 2014 [5] and 2015. [6]
In 2016, Davies traveled to Los Angeles. She photographed Venice and Santa Monica and the surrounding neighborhoods. [7] Since then, she has continued to photograph Texas, Florida, and rural America as well as Western Canada. [8]
In 2021 Davies released a book of photographs entitled “New Yorkers.” [9] New Yorkers presents 72 portraits of people in their apartments. [10] A cast of drag queens, store owners, doctors, dog walkers, psychics, cab drivers, writers, artists, tattoo artists, gallery owners, photographers, designers, dancers, and musicians (including such legendary New Yorkers as Laurie Anderson, Danny Fields, and William Ivey Long) reveal the diversity, creativity, and humanity at the heart of New York City. [11]
After betting with a restaurateur friend that McDonald's food did not spoil, rot, or go mouldy, Sally Davies purchased a Happy Meal from McDonald's and began photographing the food item daily, storing it on her kitchen counter. [3] This commenced the "McDonald's Happy Meal Project". The project began on April 10, 2010. [3] [12] The project demonstrated that the Happy Meal looked the same as it did when it was purchased months and years later. On August 19, 2018 the Happy Meal Project reached it 3051st day. It continues to be documented by Sally Davies. [13]
Her "Lucky Chairs" have been featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show and Sex and the City . Her photographs of the 9/11 attacks are included in the book A Democracy of Photos (Scalo Press, 2002).
Davies' portraits include: Debra Winger, featured on the cover of Winger's 2008 book undiscovere (Simon and Schuster, 2008); Elaine Kaufman in Everyone Comes to Elaine's (A. E. Hotchner, Harper Collins Publishers, NYC, 2004), and Canadian musician Jim Cuddy, for the cover of his album Skyscraper Soul (2011). Davies also shot the cover image on Cuddy's previous solo album, The Light That Guides You Home (2006), and art directed and photographed the cover image for his 2018 album Constellation .
Her paintings and photographs are in the collections of Harvard Business School, Sarah Jessica Parker, Debra Winger, Michael Patrick King, Phil Scotti, Jane Holzer, Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol and others. [1] Davies' work is also in the permanent collection of The Museum of the City of New York. [14]