The Epistle according to Saint Anthony

Saint Anthony was a Portuguese Franciscan Friar, canonised in 1232, the year after his death, and known for his compassion for those suffering poverty or ill health. He is the Patron Saint specifically for lost people and things. It is no wonder that Anthony Davies has, in titling his series of linocuts, linked his own role as an artist to his sanctified namesake. There is a long tradition of artists both identifying with, and representing, the marginalised and downtrodden, while maintaining both detachment and empathy. The artist, as an outsider in relation to mainstream culture, gains insight into that culture through witnessing and representing the plight of others and the perpetual conflicts of power and ideology.

In contrast to Saint Anthony, Anthony the artist is not a preacher, and his "epistles" are not didactic. In fact, he is more often simply shining a spotlight on those who influence others with their "truth", and of the human tendency to follow and congregate. While the images serve up many different causes and agendas, slicing up contemporary life in all directions, a recurring feature (recurring throughout Davies' work over many years) is the human mass: the downtrodden finding safety in numbers; the zealous mob; a media scrum. He sees the unexpected alienation felt by those in the crowd, and the blank faces of the confused. Indeed, he tends to deliberately makes the images themselves confusing for the viewer, a tangle of bodies and viewpoints that is not really an "epistle" at all, but an invitation to reflect on your own perspective, to locate yourself in the wider pattern of life.

Davies art consistently addresses political rather than aesthetic concerns. Yet it is the inventiveness of his mark-making that brings his scenarios and characters into being, makes them vivid and complex.

In The Epistle According to Saint Anthony, the swathes of orange and yellow gouache, in tandem with the oval form, call to mind the opulent abstractions of Gretchen Albrecht, though here lending a lurid glow to feverishly figurative compositions. Indeed, Davies' steadfastly independent methods place him outside any specific style, contemporary or historical. His art is at once personal and political, committed to keen observation of human follies and frailties.