A Picture of Health
by Lucas Davidson
Catalogue text, Dominik Mersch Gallery, Sydney
March 2024

Lucas Davidson’s latest exhibition ‘A Picture of Health’ looks to the natural world as a place of hope and healing. Using samples of other photographers’ works, Davidson creates vibrant compositions that evoke watery depths, and endless horizons, while engaging with the robust history of photography.

The small works that line the perimeter of the gallery walls were meticulously created over the course of a year while Davidson was being treated for cancer. In these works, horizontal lines are layered in contrasting hues and gradients generating space within the image; the movement between surface and depth focuses the viewer’s eye and attention. Wallace J Nichols, the American marine biologist and author of “Blue Mind” states that staring at repetitive patterns in art and nature changes our brain waves, putting us into a mild meditative state. For Davidson these works suggest an internal landscape, a place for the mind to rest and restore in a similar meditation.

In the center of the room are fourteen Tibetan singing bowls that form a single sculpture titled ‘In search of silence’. Each bell when struck produces a sustained harmonious resonance that can promote relaxation. The work is not intended to be played but stands as a symbol to stay committed to all things that connect Davidson, and in turn, us, to the present.

Working intimately with colour and sound over the past year has led Davidson on a new path in his practice and life; where health and healing are incorporated into his daily rituals of making art. Combined, these works aim to straddle the delicate balance between the outer world and inner world, acting as daily reminders to go outside, to stare at the horizon, dive deep into the ocean and be part of the natural world.