Dexter Davis

(1965 - )

North America, American

A lifetime Cleveland resident and full-time security guard at the Cleveland Museum of Art since 1994, Dexter Davis creates mixed media artworks that are expressly personal, often relating narratives of his own experiences. Davis grew up in Hough, a predominantly black neighborhood that witnessed massive riots in the 1960s due to widespread poverty and racial discrimination. Davis’s high school teacher Bill Jean recognized his artistic potential and helped lead him to study at the Cleveland Institute of Art (BFA, 1990), where Davis developed a mixed media approach as a drawing major. While at CIA, he received a summer scholarship to travel to the Lacoste School of the Arts in France—an experience that opened Davis’s awareness of the world beyond his own neighborhood. After graduation, Davis struggled to make ends meet, occasionally exhibiting at Cleveland’s Grog Shop and making work from salvaged and discarded materials. In 1993 he exhibited with several young artists in Cleveland X at Spaces, which led to representation and regular exhibitions by William Busta from 1997–2014. Solo presentations of his work include the Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art (now MOCA Cleveland, 1998) and CVA Gallery, Kent State University (2016); and his work has been included in several regional group exhibitions. The artist has undertaken residencies at Zygote Press in Cleveland (2000) and Experimental Printmaking Institute, Lafayette College, Easton, PA (1998).

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