Davina Jackson studied at Central St Martin’s and The Byam Shaw School of Art and completed her three year post graduate at The Royal Academy Schools where she was awarded The Gold Medal for painting. Whilst juggling motherhood alongside her career as an artist, her work has featured in numerous group and mixed exhibitions, among them twelve appearances at The Royal Academy Summer show . She has had eight solo shows nationally and internationally, two of which were curated by the art historian and critic , Edward Lucie-Smith. Her work is represented in both private and public collections and throughout her career has won many awards , the most recent being the RWS Open Award earlier this year.
Davina’s work is predominantly centred around exploring the human form and a search for poetic simplicity. The way we inhabit our bodies, how we express ourselves through subtle gestures and reveal inner truths through our eye contact and body language. Her inspiration comes from everyday observations , poetry, theatre, photography, story telling and her own personal lived experiences . She has always and continues to paint in oils but during the pandemic, when she was forced to work from home, she rediscovered her love for the immediacy and more instinctive process of working with water based paints, allowing more accidents to happen which in turn, reveal new subject matter and inform the direction of her work.
