Lauchlan Davis is an artist raised in Tennessee, graduated from the University of Virginia, and currently living in Charleston, SC. Davis develops her signature style by working with a palette knife to achieve complex layers of pixelated textures and chromatic multiplicity.

The Recorder of the Nature

Like many other college students, Davis felt she was without direction during her college career. Unlike others, she took a gap year and found herself as a painter. It was a life-changing decision for her to embark on her journey of hiking the Appalachian Trail. She said: “I couldn’t live without intention, so I needed to really determine what direction I needed to take my education, my career.” To keep moving forward was the only goal for her in that four-month solo backpacking adventure. That same spirit persists in her life as an artist. She keeps doing what she loves and embraces whatever challenge comes next. During her travels, Davis immersed herself in nature as an observer and a participant. Each step she took was a process of introspection of contradictions within her Southern upbringing, on ecological endangerment, and ultimately on how to find hope and beauty in the midst of painful complexity. After the trip, she made her way to use her palette knife to tell the stories about problematic histories, personal memories, and internal landscapes. Davis especially wants to raise the awareness of the shifting landscapes of American wildernesses caused by climate changes. “There are so many wonderful places you can only reach by hiking. It is important for me to paint them down before they disappear.” With this vision, her art enables the viewer to look critically at their surroundings’ current state and meditate upon the dynamic, emotional, and vibrant micro-abstractions just below the surface of visible surroundings.