A Naples-based artist with deep Sarasota roots, Lynn Davison has spent a lifetime returning to the human figure, the discipline of the studio, and the productive uncertainty that keeps a painting alive.
For Lynn Davison, art was never a career she had to choose. It was the thing she did before she had language for ambition, before she understood the machinery of galleries, fellowships, exhibitions, and public collections. “Making art was simply what I did—and what I have always done,” she says.
That constancy has carried Davison from childhood in Florida to decades of serious figurative work, from the Ringling School of Art in Sarasota to solo exhibitions across Florida and beyond. Her paintings and works on paper have entered public collections including Florida Gulf Coast University, the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, the Polk Museum of Art, the University of South Florida, and others, while her resume includes major awards from institutions such as the Butler Institute of American Art, the Boca Raton Museum of Art, and the Smithsonian Institution.
What distinguishes Davison’s work, though, is not the resume alone. It is the tension in the bodies she paints, the refusal of easy beauty, and the way her figures seem to hold several meanings at once. On her website, Davison describes her work as “enigmatic, without apology,” and says she is content with ambiguity because it challenges the viewer. In conversation, she returns again and again to that same idea: that a painting does not need to disclose itself all at once. “I hope someone will look at a piece long enough to begin constructing a story of their own,” she says. “The viewer’s interpretation becomes part of the life of the work.”
Early Impressions
One of Davison’s earliest encounters with the power of art came not through something decorative or pleasing, but through a Goya etching from The Disasters of War. She discovered it as a child in an art book belonging to her stepmother. The image stayed with her because it was not pretty; it was forceful. “Pretty has never interested me very much,” she says. “I have always been more drawn to emotional force, psychological complexity, and the human figure.”
Sarasota also formed her visual imagination. Born in St. Albans, Vermont, Davison moved to Bradenton as a child, graduated from Palmetto High, and attended the Ringling School of Art while living at home. Her mother was a docent at Ca’ d’Zan, the Ringling residence, which gave Davison unusual access to the Ringling Museum. “The Rubens cartoons made a tremendous impression on me, as did Rembrandt,” she says. “Being able to encounter ambitious figurative art at such a young age helped shape my understanding of what painting could accomplish.”
Materials, Processes, and the Body as Language
Davison primarily uses oil paints. “Since discovering Vasari oils, I have also discovered color in a new way. Previously, I worked mainly with raw umber and ultramarine blue—a very limited palette,” she says. “I am also drawn to processes that are technically demanding. I have loved working with intaglio, mezzotint, and silverpoint. I enjoy materials and techniques that require patience, concentration, and a willingness to be challenged.”
She paints often on Dibond or aluminum, and also works across drawing, printmaking, iPad-based imagery, and mixed media pieces that begin digitally, are printed, adhered to wood, drawn into again, and covered with epoxy.
“My work has always been figurative, although the form it takes continues to change. Since I began painting on Dibond, some of the work has become tighter and more controlled. Then I return to drawing on my iPad, where the work becomes playful and loose again,” she explains. “The iPad, particularly the Procreate app, has become an important tool for me. I use it to explore ideas for paintings, but I also draw simply for the pleasure of experimenting. Sometimes I print an image, draw directly over the print, adhere it to wood, and cover it with epoxy. I enjoy moving back and forth between traditional materials and digital processes.”
The nude figure remains central because, for Davison, the body carries more than anatomy. “The smallest physical detail can communicate so much,” she says, pointing to the angle of a shoulder, the way a finger is held, or a crooked toe. The body can suggest vulnerability, but it can also hold humor, tension, strength, personality, and uncertainty. “Very small gestures can reveal an entire emotional world.” Her figures invite viewers to linger, not because they offer a single story, but because they open a field of possible stories.
That openness matters. Davison does not expect viewers to arrive at one correct meaning. The stories she associates with a painting often change while she is making it. What she hopes is that viewers will look long enough to construct something of their own. “I welcome multiple interpretations because I often have multiple interpretations myself. Ambiguity keeps a work alive.”
Discipline, Difficulty, and the Studio
For all the mystery in the finished work, Davison speaks about artmaking with a practical directness.
“I hate beginning a new piece,” she confesses. “Suddenly, the studio needs to be cleaned, correspondence needs to be answered, and any number of other tasks become urgent. These are all ways of delaying the beginning.”
She relies on a simple ritual to help her engage with a painting.
“The important thing is that I continue to show up in the studio. This is my job, and I treat it that way. Once a painting is underway, I often begin the day by brushing Liquin over the entire surface. That small ritual helps me reenter the painting and continue the conversation with it.” Some days art feels liberating and exhilarating; other days it is difficult, frustrating labor. Usually, it is both. The discipline of continuing matters more than waiting for inspiration to arrive.
Music is always part of the ritual—or perhaps the magic.
“I always listen to music while I work. My songs are arranged alphabetically in iTunes, so the result is an unpredictable mixture: bluegrass, jazz, classical music, Willie Nelson, Tom Waits, Lucinda Williams, Yo-Yo Ma, and The Seldom Scene, among many others. I like not knowing what will come next.”
As far as her emotional investment in a piece, she says that, “it varies from one painting to another and even from one stage of a painting to the next. There are moments when I am deeply emotionally involved, and other moments when I need to step back and look at the work almost clinically. A painting requires both responses. Emotion may initiate or animate the work, but judgment, observation, and discipline are necessary to bring it to completion.”
However, she gives every piece the same attention and consideration.
“Every piece is challenging, and that is part of the pleasure of making art. Without difficulty, there is very little opportunity for growth,” she says. “I do not believe an artist should ever become completely satisfied. I continue to look at the work of artists from the past, as well as a few contemporary artists, and wonder how they accomplished what they did. That curiosity—and the awareness that there is always more to learn—keeps the work alive.”
So, she comes again and again to the studio and regularly studies the work of other artists; perhaps that is why one can see glimpses of the Old Masters at times in her work and why one might be surprised that she is a contemporary artist. The unashamed revelation of the authentic naked form and the showcasing of hands and feet, which many artists shy away from and can never master, is another hallmark of a Davison piece. “I love the way the human body is constructed, and I love the extraordinary range of color within it,” she says. And we love what she does with it, and how she strips away not only clothing but layers of pretense to present hidden truths and uncertainties.
She speaks of a time when that daily discipline and ritual was challenged. “There was a period when I was deeply depressed,” she says. “I saw very few people beyond my husband and our young child, and I painted every day. My husband and I had built our own house in the woods. When friends began building a house next door, I wheeled our tools over and helped them. Working outside, sawing wood, and being around other people was enormously helpful.
“One of those neighbors operated a sailing charter business, and I worked there for a year. I even taught sailing, although I had no business teaching anyone to sail. Eventually, the experience helped me understand that this was not what I wanted to do with my life. I returned to making art.
“That summer, we moved to Tampa so I could study intaglio at the University of South Florida. Later that year, I received a Florida Fellowship Award and used the funds to purchase a large etching press. That period reaffirmed that art was not simply something I did; it was the work I needed to do.”
A Quiet Presence in Naples
Although Davison lives in Naples, many people locally may not know the depth of her artistic career. She says that people do not always ask older women what they do or what interests them, and she also made a conscious choice not to become involved in local art politics.
“After moving to Naples, I did not initially see many opportunities for the kind of work I was making, so I concentrated much of my effort on exhibiting outside the area. Sarasota has always felt like my artistic home,” she explains. “Sarasota and larger cities seemed more receptive to my work. The work did not have to be decorative, easily explained, or conventionally beautiful. It could be figurative, unsettling, ambiguous, or emotionally complicated.” That is precisely where its power lies.
Current Work and What Comes Next
Davison’s recent work includes oil paintings on Dibond and aluminum, mixed media pieces, drawings, prints, and works on paper. Recent imagery has included eggshells, plastic, animals, hands, and figures—subjects that allow her to explore fragility, transparency, distortion, and gesture. She says she may be nearing the end of her eggshell imagery, although a current painting still places colorful eggshells inside a plastic bag. She enjoys painting plastic for its reflections, transparency, and ability to transform what it contains.
She also has commissions ahead and is preparing for two solo exhibitions scheduled for January 2027: one at Florida Gulf Coast University and another at 502 Gallery in Sarasota. In that sense, the work is not retrospective. It is ongoing, daily, and still changing.
When asked if any period of her life had been a “golden age” for her, Davison replied, “In many ways, it has all been a golden age. I have been extraordinarily fortunate to spend my life making art.”
In fact, we are the ones who have been extraordinarily fortunate to have encountered and engaged with a truly great American artist who has left her mark and her name for future generations to consider.
Take a look at Lynn Davison’s gallery to appreciate the range of her work: paintings, mixed media pieces, and work on paper that reveal an artist still asking difficult questions through the human figure, the material surface, and the charged silence of ambiguity.
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Davison lives in Naples and recently lost her dog, Penny, who she still misses. These days she is a stepmother to Dash, a good friend’s Dalmatian. He provides some welcome canine companionship. When asked what she does for fun and relaxation, she said, “Relaxation? I am not sure I understand the question. Making art is both my work and much of what I do for pleasure. I also enjoy music, looking at art, spending time with friends, and allowing myself to follow an idea simply because it interests me.”
Extraordinary People
