JSMA at PSU is pleased to present an exhibition tour of Just Playin’ Around. Led by museum Director Maryanna Ramirez, the tour will cover highlights of the exhibition. She will be joined by artist Jeremy Okai Davis, who will share insights on his paintings in the exhibition!
Jeremy Okai Davis was born in 1979 in Charlotte, North Carolina, and has lived in Portland since 2007, working as a graphic designer and illustrator while continuing his studio practice. Davis describes himself first as a portrait painter. His portraits have a distinct pointillist or “pixelated” style in which individual daubs of colors make up a skin tone—pinks and blues in white faces, and purples and greens in Black faces. Davis employs this technique to suggest that “we are more than what you see. From afar the colors tend to blend but when you look closer you see the multiple layers and colors that we all contain.”
Please contact jsma@pdx.edu or (503) 725-6238 two weeks in advance of the program to request accommodations for a disability or ask questions about physical access.
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Just Playin’ Around is curated by Nancy Downes-Le Guin and Theo Downes-Le Guin. This exhibition is supported by The Ford Family Foundation, The Reser Family Foundation, the Jackson Foundation, Elements Roofing, the Richard and Helen Phillips Charitable Fund, and the JSMA Exhibition Circle.
Image Credit: Jeremy Okai Davis, Untitled (Ray Brown) (detail), 2023–24, Acrylic on canvas, 52 x 40 inches, Collection of Jonathan H. Singer, Image courtesy of the artist and Elizabeth Leach Gallery, Portland, OR