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拍品專文
If I’m making any statement, it’s to just show Black people in normal scenarios…Noah Davis
Recently the subject of a major international museum retrospective touring Germany, the U.K., and the U.S.A., Noah Davis is an artist whose paintings have, as The New York Times once described, the ability to “dwell in silence, slow us down, and hypnotize” (R. Smith, “Noah Davis is Gone; His Paintings Continue to Hypnotize,” The New York Times, February 6, 2020 online [accessed: 4/21/2026]). Painted in 2008, Blue House is such painting, and one that has particular personal significance for the artist. He gifted it to his family soon after it was painted, and it has remained in their collection ever since.
Sitting squarely within its lot, the substantial frame of the Blue House appears isolated from its neighbors. A low garage on the left of the property and a front garden contained by a high wall protect its residents from the open public areas of the streets and sidewalks. Indeed, any occupants and visitors to the house have to enter from the sidewalk via a steep and winding staircase: an isolated figure stands at the entrance to the property about to embark on such a journey. The building itself comprises three floors, culminating in a dark, pitched roof. Its facades are punctuated by black windows showing little signs of life inside. Indeed, the only people in this streetscape are the two figures who stand at the boundary of the property. Above them, a looming sky appears through breaks in the cloud.
2008, the year Blue House was painted, proved to be a pivotal period for the artist. He fell in love with Karon, his future wife, and opened his first solo exhibition at the Roberts & Tilton gallery in Los Angeles. He was also the youngest painter chosen for a major show at the Rubell Family Collection in Miami, which included the work of thirty Black artists, including David Hammons, Glenn Ligon, Lorna Simpson, and Kara Walker. The period also saw his signature style begin to emerge. Burgeoning elements of that style are on display in the present work, and as the critic Zachary Fine has noted, “he could turn the surface of a painting into its emotional core” (“The Haunting Talent of Noah Davis,” The New Yorker, February 23, 2026 online [accessed: 4/21/2026]).
In this matter, Davis has much in common with one of his artistic heroes, the Abstract Expressionist painter Mark Rothko. Like Rothko, Davis would build up the surface of his canvases from a multitude of thin layers of pigment, resulting in a richness and depth that is rare in contemporary painting. It was always a process; as can be seen from a photograph of the present work at an early stage, the finished painting was often very different from what was imagined by the artist at the beginning. Like Rothko, Davis also applied his pigment using the minimum amount of binder, often even applying it dry to the surface of the canvas. The result is a surface that exudes atmosphere, the quietness of Davis’s colors speaking volumes.
Blue House is one of several paintings within Davis’s oeuvre to feature buildings or other architectural structures. The artist had a deep interest in the architecture of Southern California, and Blue House was the first painting in which he explored this theme. The blue house itself was located directly across the street from Davis’s apartment, and he saw it every day as he drank his coffee. An early influence, and the subject of a 2000 painting called The Architect, was Paul Revere Williams, one of the first Black architects to gain a reputation for his trailblazing buildings, including the iconic space-age Theme Building at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). Williams would prove to be a huge influence on Davis, not only as a successful Black practitioner of his art, but also in helping Davis to develop his ideas on the intersection of race, class and public spaces. Indeed, Blue House is as much an essay on the idea of the Black public space as it is about the physical structure that it depicts.
In addition to the legacy of his paintings, Davis is known as the founder, along with his brother Kahlil and wife Karon, of the Underground Museum, a unique space to see world-class art and learn from leading thinkers, educators, chefs, and artists in the historically Black and Latinx neighborhood of Arlington Heights in Los Angeles. Open from 2012 to 2022, the Underground Museum served as Los Angeles's only artist-run museum, providing a unique and crucial perspective to the city's cultural institutions. Helen Molesworth, curator and close friend of the artist, described the venue as “the city’s best gathering spot for artists and intellectuals (“Noah Davis, An Introduction,” in H. Molesworth, Noah Davis, New York, 2020, p. 7). While the artist Deana Lawson remembers the founding tenet of the project, “I think Noah had a knack for identifying what matters most in this moment—which conversations, which sort of relationships, with communities and individuals coming together. That’s one of the greatest things about the Underground” (quoted in H. Molesworth, “Deana Lawson,” in Noah Davis, New York, 2020, p. 53). Blue House was one of the first works to be hung in the museum, for the benefit of the local community.
In their quiet stillness, Noah Davis’s paintings are affectingly powerful. As in Edward Hopper’s melancholic glimpses into the private lives of the public, ordinary people in ordinary situations can still convey a powerful message about society. Davis gave a voice to those previously excluded from that narrative, ensuring that their stories resonate even louder. As the artist himself said, “If I’m making any statement, it’s to just show Black people in normal scenarios… You rarely see Black people represented independent of the civil rights issues or social problems that go on in the States. I’m looking to move on from that stage…” (quoted in “Black-Ground: Noah Davis and the Spatial Frequencies of the Black everyday, in W. Fray-Smith, P. Malavassi, and E. Nairne, Noah Davis, exh. cat, DAS MINSK, Berlin, 2024, p. 164).
Recently the subject of a major international museum retrospective touring Germany, the U.K., and the U.S.A., Noah Davis is an artist whose paintings have, as The New York Times once described, the ability to “dwell in silence, slow us down, and hypnotize” (R. Smith, “Noah Davis is Gone; His Paintings Continue to Hypnotize,” The New York Times, February 6, 2020 online [accessed: 4/21/2026]). Painted in 2008, Blue House is such painting, and one that has particular personal significance for the artist. He gifted it to his family soon after it was painted, and it has remained in their collection ever since.
Sitting squarely within its lot, the substantial frame of the Blue House appears isolated from its neighbors. A low garage on the left of the property and a front garden contained by a high wall protect its residents from the open public areas of the streets and sidewalks. Indeed, any occupants and visitors to the house have to enter from the sidewalk via a steep and winding staircase: an isolated figure stands at the entrance to the property about to embark on such a journey. The building itself comprises three floors, culminating in a dark, pitched roof. Its facades are punctuated by black windows showing little signs of life inside. Indeed, the only people in this streetscape are the two figures who stand at the boundary of the property. Above them, a looming sky appears through breaks in the cloud.
2008, the year Blue House was painted, proved to be a pivotal period for the artist. He fell in love with Karon, his future wife, and opened his first solo exhibition at the Roberts & Tilton gallery in Los Angeles. He was also the youngest painter chosen for a major show at the Rubell Family Collection in Miami, which included the work of thirty Black artists, including David Hammons, Glenn Ligon, Lorna Simpson, and Kara Walker. The period also saw his signature style begin to emerge. Burgeoning elements of that style are on display in the present work, and as the critic Zachary Fine has noted, “he could turn the surface of a painting into its emotional core” (“The Haunting Talent of Noah Davis,” The New Yorker, February 23, 2026 online [accessed: 4/21/2026]).
In this matter, Davis has much in common with one of his artistic heroes, the Abstract Expressionist painter Mark Rothko. Like Rothko, Davis would build up the surface of his canvases from a multitude of thin layers of pigment, resulting in a richness and depth that is rare in contemporary painting. It was always a process; as can be seen from a photograph of the present work at an early stage, the finished painting was often very different from what was imagined by the artist at the beginning. Like Rothko, Davis also applied his pigment using the minimum amount of binder, often even applying it dry to the surface of the canvas. The result is a surface that exudes atmosphere, the quietness of Davis’s colors speaking volumes.
Blue House is one of several paintings within Davis’s oeuvre to feature buildings or other architectural structures. The artist had a deep interest in the architecture of Southern California, and Blue House was the first painting in which he explored this theme. The blue house itself was located directly across the street from Davis’s apartment, and he saw it every day as he drank his coffee. An early influence, and the subject of a 2000 painting called The Architect, was Paul Revere Williams, one of the first Black architects to gain a reputation for his trailblazing buildings, including the iconic space-age Theme Building at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). Williams would prove to be a huge influence on Davis, not only as a successful Black practitioner of his art, but also in helping Davis to develop his ideas on the intersection of race, class and public spaces. Indeed, Blue House is as much an essay on the idea of the Black public space as it is about the physical structure that it depicts.
In addition to the legacy of his paintings, Davis is known as the founder, along with his brother Kahlil and wife Karon, of the Underground Museum, a unique space to see world-class art and learn from leading thinkers, educators, chefs, and artists in the historically Black and Latinx neighborhood of Arlington Heights in Los Angeles. Open from 2012 to 2022, the Underground Museum served as Los Angeles's only artist-run museum, providing a unique and crucial perspective to the city's cultural institutions. Helen Molesworth, curator and close friend of the artist, described the venue as “the city’s best gathering spot for artists and intellectuals (“Noah Davis, An Introduction,” in H. Molesworth, Noah Davis, New York, 2020, p. 7). While the artist Deana Lawson remembers the founding tenet of the project, “I think Noah had a knack for identifying what matters most in this moment—which conversations, which sort of relationships, with communities and individuals coming together. That’s one of the greatest things about the Underground” (quoted in H. Molesworth, “Deana Lawson,” in Noah Davis, New York, 2020, p. 53). Blue House was one of the first works to be hung in the museum, for the benefit of the local community.
In their quiet stillness, Noah Davis’s paintings are affectingly powerful. As in Edward Hopper’s melancholic glimpses into the private lives of the public, ordinary people in ordinary situations can still convey a powerful message about society. Davis gave a voice to those previously excluded from that narrative, ensuring that their stories resonate even louder. As the artist himself said, “If I’m making any statement, it’s to just show Black people in normal scenarios… You rarely see Black people represented independent of the civil rights issues or social problems that go on in the States. I’m looking to move on from that stage…” (quoted in “Black-Ground: Noah Davis and the Spatial Frequencies of the Black everyday, in W. Fray-Smith, P. Malavassi, and E. Nairne, Noah Davis, exh. cat, DAS MINSK, Berlin, 2024, p. 164).