Artist Bio
Davon Brantley, a Cleveland, OH native, graduated with a BFA in Drawing from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 2018. Since then, he has deeply immersed himself in the art community, engaging in teaching, curating, exploring diverse mediums, exhibiting his work, and mentoring emerging artists. Davon is consistently working to shape perceptions of art as a viable and sustainable career path.
In recognition of his contributions and talent, Carta awarded him the 2024 Eterovich Award. This prestigious award, funded by a donation from the family of Anthony Eterovich—an artist and educator who led CIA's children's classes for over 50 years—is presented to exceptional emerging artists with works in carta’s collection.
Brantley has exhibited and curated at significant venues including Bay Arts, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland, the CAN Triennial, the Morgan Conservatory, the Indianapolis Arts Center, and the Artists Archives of the Western Reserve. He collaborates with local organizations such as the Museum of Creative Human Art and Graffiti HeArt, furthering his printmaking studies through DeepDive Art Projects and the Cleveland Institute of Art. Additionally, he advocates for introducing the arts to younger generations and participates in mural projects.
In his artistic practice, Brantley employs self-portraiture and psychological themes, drawing inspiration from dissociative behaviors resulting from trauma. He explains, “I guide the audience through my own narratives surrounding colorism, racial stereotyping, and meditations on death, life, sexuality, and masculinity. By using my image, viewers encounter someone who may not share their experiences and who actively disrupts identity expectations.”
Through his multifaceted involvement in the art community and his poignant explorations, Davon Brantley inspires and empowers both audiences and aspiring artists alike.
Artist Statement
My name is Davon Brantley and I utilize self-portraiture and psychology within my work. I am focused on the dissociative behaviors and the emotional repetition that certain experiences create within an individual. Through drawing, painting, and other media, my work focuses on how these experiences lead to inner conflicts, and a deeper investigation of self. This work delves into ways these conflicts shape our relationships, from family and love to broader reflections on life, death, sexuality, masculinity and race. I lead the audience through mind as if they are watching a play; utilizing dramatic compositions, absurd realism and characters that embody complex emotions and themes in which I perform all of the roles. Through larger than life-sized work, I present a glimpse inside of my mental landscape and its inhabitants; finding ground for what is invisible that bleeds into my waking world.
Through scale, These compositions and bodies become unavoidable, underscoring the importance of acknowledging all the parts of the self. By depicting these figures larger than life, I emphasize the point of understanding ourselves in totality rather than smaller, intimate work. Though my work can tackle feelings and situations that may be considered taboo, bringing them to light through vulnerability helps the viewer to connect with these emotions. Through vibrant color and textured brushstrokes, I etch and sculpt these figures from a blank canvas, refusing to simplify the emotions represented. These feelings, though complex and uncomfortable, deserve to be illuminated in their most vulnerable moments, as we cannot exist without them. My entire objective with my practice is to create a connection with the viewer, to evoke emotion, allowing them to see that their internal conflicts of these entities can be beautiful; when we understand and regulate them.
Though my work often utilizes Baroque and Renaissance conventions in my use of composition, medium, visual language. I am actively challenging these traditions through the use of the Black body—often marginalized or misrepresented in Western Art History. Rejecting this absence, I am inserting Black narratives and African Mythos, that can intersect with Western narratives that have dominated the fine art world.