Since her early bookwork L’histoire souple (or knit one purl one) (1985), Christine Davis has pursued a practice that resists a singular style in favor of a sustained inquiry into material, technique, and contingency. Across her career, she has exhibited widely in Canada and internationally, presenting works that explore the materiality of language, images, and the spaces in which they appear.
From books, contact lenses, feathers and Morpho wings to rare manuscripts, filmstrips, and projected light, Davis has consistently investigated the screen as both surface and threshold — an unstable site where material presence and immaterial projection meet. Whether working with slides, 16mm film, or immersive installations, she treats the image not simply as representation but as a material event, binding disparate elements into hybrid systems of sense and sensation. Her work reflects a lineage shaped by both art and science. Coming from a family of scientists, Davis aligns her process with experimental research methodologies, positioning her practice closer to inquiry than to expression. Through this lens, her projects generate provisional structures where language, matter, and thought intersect, allowing new forms of knowledge to appear.
Davis’ installations, films, and bookworks have been presented at major museums, galleries, and festivals, marking her as a key figure in contemporary art’s exploration of media, sentience, and the mutable life of images.
Exhibitions
- 2024
The Incandescent (or Second attempt at understanding)
202350th Anniversary Group Show
2022It's Not Fair
2022Bright Summer Nights
2022The Formless Body
2021Enchanted
2018Fotopsychodiagnostik
2010As if his throat opened into the void of stars
News Stories
Available Artworks
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Celestial Geometry, 2022
Christine Davisgesso, pastel, pigment, acrylic, morpho didius butterflies on wood panel, 36" dia.
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Morphochrome (Icarus), 2020
Christine Davisgesso, archival gel, Morpho Didius butterflies, canvas 48" x 36"
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1st attempt at understanding, 2019
Christine Davisarchival pigment print and pen on canvas 60" x 84.5" ed. of 3
