Jeremy Okai Davis, Those Days Are Over

Those Days Are Over began when local artist Jeremy Okai Davis' landlord gave him an album of photographs left behind by a travel agency. The pictures of friends vacationing in the 1980s inspired Davis to paint a nostalgic new collection that tries to capture the feeling of an old photo album.

Davis replicated the pictures of skiers passing Kodak cameras and pitchers of beer, but his loose brushstrokes and bright hues are more abstract than their source material. I expected straightforward copies—the same size, scale and colors at least. But Davis' style, like memory, is more concerned with feeling than accuracy.

His paintings range from the petite, 11-by-4-inch When It Rains to the nearly 3-foot square If He Only Knew…. The variation in size lures us into interaction with the art, like flipping through a stack of found photos. We peer closer to see the feathered hair of vacationers in Tub, and step back to see the movement of two men swinging their hips, hands and shoulders in The Dance Party.

Snow Break captures the outdoor light and the lightness of having drinks on a patio with friends. A woman's polarized sunglasses refract a rainbow of colors, and the man next to her squints. Behind the couple are friends keeping cool, one in an eye-catching white hat. Kenn Stephenson (Planning Party) is a group hug. Two women, wearing blues and pinks, flank a man in a brown-and-white checked shirt. Together they're the 1980s color palette incarnate. These colors bleed past the image's bottom, hinting at how photos fade over time, and our memories with them.

Next to the artist statement, there is a display of books with titles like How to Take Good Pictures and decorative tchotchkes. They are inoffensive additions, serving as physical markers for our trip down memory lane, but these few relics seem sparse. Davis' paintings are emotive enough to convey whole worlds of meaning on their own. 

SEE IT: Those Days Are Over is at Duplex Gallery, 219 NW Couch St., 206-5089. 9 am-5 pm Monday-Friday through May 29.

WWeek 2015