Bio Ian Davenport

Ian Davenport is a British Contemporary painter who was born in 1966. His work has featured in numerous exhibitions at key galleries and museums. In his graduation year, 1988, he exhibited in the ‘Freeze’ exhibition organised by Damien Hirst. In 2003, he exhibited at the Tate Britain, Days Like These, where he made a notable thirteen-metre high mural by dripping lines of differently coloured paint down the wall from a syringe. In the years since, Davenport has exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts, the Galleria Nazionale Arte Moderna in Rome, and Kunsthal Rotterdam, among other institutions.

On the secondary market, Ian Davenport’s work has been offered at auction multiple times with great success, his artworks reaching six figure sums as recent as this year (2021), Christie’s London.

Davenport is best known for his colourful “puddle” paintings. To make them, the artist meticulously pours hundreds of thin acrylic lines down a canvas, and they artfully pool and swerve at the bottom. All of Davenport’s work embraces experimentation: He has used a variety of industrial and everyday tools, including wind machines, hypodermic syringes and watering cans – to manipulate paint and draw as much attention to the process of artmaking as to the finished work themselves.

For over 20 years, Ian Davenport has made paintings by pouring paint onto a tilted surface. Driven by this signature technique, Davenport is regarded as an established and a leading British Contemporary artist.

Artist Performance At Auction

IAN DAVENPORT
POURED LINES: DARK COBALT STUDY
2007
(acrylic on aluminium panel)

Estimated Price: £30,000 – £50,000
Sold For: £81,250
Return over upper estimate: 65%

Christies, London, 2021

IAN DAVENPORT
PUDDLE PAINTING: PALE LILAC (AFTER CARPACCIO)
2010
(household paint on steel)

Estimated Price: £15,000 – £20,000
Sold For: £68,750
Return over upper estimate: 344%