Shimmer
oil on board, 12x12
2006
Artist Anne Davey
Courtesy of the artist, Anne Davey
Shimmer is based on a photograph the artist took of her daughter while she was submerged in a swimming pool. "I was intrigued by the way the light/color was reflected back to me in small dots and blotches. I wanted to get a sense of a body in the water without becoming too specific about it - hopefully leaving things ambiguous, and on that cusp between abstraction and representation…Objects are broken and distorted; depth and distance are difficult to measure. We depend on our experience with the human form to identify shapes and colors as bodies, because the visual images contradict what we know. I am intrigued by the way familiar forms become unfamiliar." Davey is a noted painter featured in local exhibitions for several years, and produced a major public art installation of large- scale swimmers at the Ed Rice Aquatic Center with the UrbanArt Commission. She currently teaches art at the Hutchison School.
