Publications (widgit)

Listen to a Jyl Hoyt interview with Fonny Davidson from “Art Beat” on NPR at Boise State University radio.

“To be a good traditional painter is not as well known as it used to be,” he says. “Most [artists] don’t go through that exercise, that training to do it. Most schools don’t teach it. Most people can’t recognize the subtleties. Today’s art has equated pushing the boundaries of art with being ‘good’ or ‘bad.'”

One of his favorite areas to paint is Barber Flats, just east of Boise, a spot that he has been documenting in his landscapes for years. While he hasn’t been out there in over a year, every time he returns, more development has occurred and more land has been eaten away by growth and urban sprawl. When looking at these works, one can see subtle changes in the land, the impact of humanity on a fragile world. Bonneville Point is another such favorite place. It is the location between Boise and Mountain Home where the Oregon Trail passed. His recent works of Bonneville Point have an airy quality, still capturing the essence but becoming more impressionistic in nature.

Davidson’s work also contains quite a bit of still life subjects. He used to focus on landscapes or still life paintings for a period of time, then return to the other. He would also limit himself to the same size canvases, a small palette of colors and one or two sizes of brushes. He paints an onion simply, with the same limited color palette he tends to use on his landscapes. These self-imposed limitations helped him master his tools and technique. He believes “it is essential for a person who has not developed technique to limit themselves. If you limit yourself to the same size format, then you don’t have to figure out how to fill the space every time.”

Today, while he may alternate between the content of his paintings more frequently, his palette, size of canvases and brush selections haven’t diversified much. Davidson says, “Content is more important than technique in some ways. I try to find content that resonates with who I am. Who in the hell are you as a person, or what can you do to express that?”

While he doesn’t go out in the field as much as he used to, Davidson says it was an important part of his artistic development. “When out painting, the sun demands you work fast, because the light changes,” he says. “Now I get out less, but I get more material.” He does some work from slides projected onto the wall in his studio, but years of plein air painting taught him what nature looks like and he relies on that.

“One thing I’m working on is to get a sense of the Western landscape–being part of the landscape, trying to assimilate what is there, being owned by it. The symbiotic relationship, that’s something I deal with all the time,” he says. “In a way, I’m dealing with the archetypal Western ideal, the dilemma I’m dealing with [is] that our modern life is so divorced from living in the landscape. That’s probably the main motivation.”

He holds up a Navajo blanket, made early last century. “This is their way of expressing who they were and who they are,” he says. “They did it intuitively. They didn’t go through the crap of intellectualizing their work. But once they started doing these for sale to the gringos, their work became polluted. Their motivation for doing them changed. The end product eventually changed as well but it was their basic tools to add spiritual content to their lives. That’s why being tied to these landscapes is so important.”

He recalls that the first gallery to show his work was the Fritchman Gallery but he has been with Stewart Gallery for the last 18 years, represented by Stephanie Wilde, whom Davidson labels the “Grand Dame” of art in Boise. But that isn’t the only place to see his paintings. Davidson’s work is all around town, in the lobby of Idaho Power, in professional offices and gracing the walls of many of Idaho’s private homes.

But for all his shows, sales and successes, Davidson’s thrill in his craft remains. His painting is a spiritual experience for him.

“When I’m out painting, I’m at my most primeval place. I get the most out of it,” he says.