WORK OF ART: A miniature 2”x3” set which Nathan constructed in his studio, then photographed.
Printing on fabric, and on silk too, has been around a long time, but few designs would resonate with a local culture and climate as intimately as Nathan Ross Davis’s.
So how does he achieve this?
Davis’s ideas for the designs come from a combination of his observation and study of the “spaces I inhabit and the spaces I interact with,” Davis tells Community.
The individuality of his designs won him a place in the Faculty exhibition of Virginia Commonwealth University-Qatar (VCUQ), where he teaches Surface Research in the Art Foundation programme.
“I was doing work about the landscape generally, but I was in Montana (USA) where it is snowy and there are trees. I am used to that natural environment. Coming here was a bit of a shock and I think it had a big impression on me,” says Davis, referring to his design influences.
Davis tends to collect things wherever he lives. Here, he has been scavenging around for rocks and photographing them.
“I had an animation of a bunch of rocks from a construction site from near my house. I take some of that stuff, use the 3D scanner and by looking at the geometry and those kinds of materials, I make things,” says Davis, an American expatriate, who arrived here just over two years ago.
“And you combine that visual research alongside the fact that I swim every day with my kids here when it is snowing back in Montana,” he adds. And from this combination comes his idea for silk prints.
“It is looking at the Islamic geometry that I interact with, the rocks and then the pool that I spend so much time in my compound and turning it into a decorative form that is a sort of local dress tradition, even though it is deviation from what people generally wear,” explains Davis.
Davis’s silk prints, on display at the VCUQ gallery, are in fact prototypes though, not ready-to-go products. They are commercially viable as they can be acid dyed and the artist believes a lot of companies have been doing it. The digital printing silk is durable. It was his first experiment with the medium and he says printing on fabric is fun.
Some of his similar designs are still in the works and will be out soon. He is also producing a few designs that he says are more colourful and graphic in a way that they are less image based and much more experiential.
Davis says working with students helps him refine his ideas. “It is interesting because they are consumers of fashion products and they have an opinion. So when you show them and have a dialogue with them and get their reaction to the work, it becomes more interesting because it is an art work and not a mass produced design in a sense,” says Davis.
Such designing, though commercially viable, always remains suspended between being a piece of art and a sellable product, he believes. As a designer and an artist, he likes it not being much commercially viable though.
Davis has sculpturing and design degrees and made all kinds of things in different media. He is inclined towards graphic designing professionally and has taught graphic design for a long time. But he says he is interested in the way those things transgress the lines of products.
“If it is just traditional graphic design I am not so interested in that. I mean I can do some branding, but only if it pushes the field of branding forward. It has to be somewhat innovative,” says Davis.
He also experiments with languages and uses text a lot in some of his stuff. “With Arabic here and my students teaching me some phrases that I don’t quite feel comfortable using but I am intrigued by, I think if there is a way to continue to step out of my comfort zone and into a cultural space that is new to me I like it,” says the teacher.
Davis says he was always interested in physics. What he liked about it was the aspect of “wonder and discovery.” And that is where he got interested in the art side of it. “I did not want to be a lab scientist. What I actually loved was the art of physics. I ended up being both the designer and artist because I like the ability to make commercial products without the stigma of selling out,” says the VCUQ instructor.
“So many artists are like ‘oh, you just make things for gallery or just to sell.’ But then the designers think it is awesome to make money with designs. So it is having a mix of both where all my friends are excited when you sell something and also at the same time excited when you don’t,” he explains, adding that one can do both without any negative connotations.
Davis believes one needs to have the inherent drive and curiosity to be an artist. “It is definitely not a life for somebody who is a consumer but producer of ideas and a combiner of things,” believes Davis.
He got into teaching by chance while he was first invited to teach somewhere based on his creative work and then he decided to give it a go. Now, he feels teaching gives him the space to work and research besides learning other things.
Davis began teaching at Ohio University and then Montana State University before coming to VCUQatar. He taught undergraduate graphic design for five years including courses in digital media, web design, identity systems, typography, publication design, design principles and a seminar on media studies called Landscape and Mediascape.
In addition to his activity as a researcher and design educator, he continues to maintain a professional practice through Arcadian Studio, a design studio and consultancy with his partner Jennifer Davis. His design work has appeared in Print Magazine, Graphis, Under Consideration’s FPO Awards, Design Boom and Creative Quarterly.