209. Davina Jackson - Memories of Summer

2025
Acrylic, ink and gouache on found book cover
11.5 x 14.5 cm

Davina’s work uses space to explore emotion, memory, and introspection. Through mark-making, painting, and the simplification of form, she examines the quiet, everyday spaces where shared humanity becomes most visible. Focusing on subtle gestures, eye contact, and body language, her work observes how we inhabit our bodies and communicate inner truths through moments of stillness and silence. These reflective scenes invite a slower, more contemplative engagement with the external world.

Drawing inspiration from ordinary encounters as well as theatre, storytelling, photography, and personal lived experience, Davina’s practice offers a quietly resonant investigation into what it means to be human. In recent years, she has begun painting on found book covers — objects already embedded with history, narrative, and material presence. These surfaces provide both a pre-existing palette and a conceptual entry point into another world, allowing her to explore tensions between inherited meaning and personal expression. Through these layered interventions, she invites viewers to reconsider narrative, memory, and perception.

Davina studied at Central Saint Martins School of Art, London (Foundation in Art, 1989), before completing a Fine Art degree at Byam Shaw School of Art, London (1991–1994), followed by a Postgraduate Master’s at the Royal Academy Schools, London (1994–1997).

Recent exhibitions include the Royal Watercolour Society, London (2026); Grounded at 55 Hollywood Road, London (2026); Memento Amoris at The Lido Stores, Margate (2026); the John Moores Painting Prize at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (2025); Defining Your Point of View at the Paul Smith Flagship Store, Mayfair (2025); Second Lives in Percy Street, London (2025); the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition (2024 & 2025); the Contemporary British Painting Prize exhibitions touring Cardiff, Huddersfield, Sheffield, and London (2024–2025); solo exhibitions at Pontone Gallery, London (2019), Moor House, London (2019), The Woolland Club, Trieste (2018), and The Albemarle Gallery, London (2017).

Awards and distinctions include a Highly Commended award at the John Moores Painting Prize (2026), being shortlisted for the Contemporary British Painting Prize (2025), the Royal Watercolour Society Open Award (2023), runner-up Drawing Bursaries at the Discerning Eye (2014 & 2018), the David Villiers Prize (2002), the Royal Academy Gold Medal for Painting (1997), the Edward Scott Travel Scholarship (1997), and multiple awards from the Royal Academy Schools including the David Murray Landscape Travel Prize, Duff Green Drawing Prize, Celia Walker Print Prize, and Apthorp Trust Prize. Earlier distinctions include being a finalist for the Winsor & Newton Young Artist Award (1995) and winning First Prize at the Ben Uri Open Exhibition (1994).

Her work is held in collections including Stonehage Fleming, the Fenton Arts Trust, the Tavistock Centre, Chevron PLC, The Cromwell Hospital, the Mayor of Kensington and Chelsea, Barnet Council, the Leverhulme Trust, and Oceana Investment Partners.