Chronicle profile: Croton artist Lauren Davis walks by the water every evening. Her moody visions are now on view at a major new exhibition in the Upper Village.

Perhaps known best for co-creating the 9/11 Memorial on Croton Landing, Lauren Davis's new show at the Croton River Artisans Gallery is on until the end of April.

Lauren Davis at her new exhibition, Croton River Artisans Gallery

(Photo by Michael Balter)

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If you have ever strolled along Croton’s riverfront in the evening, you may have run into Lauren Davis without realizing it. Lately she has been walking along the Hudson River pretty much every night, searching for the play of water and light that will inspire yet another moody painting. This month, a generous offering of her work is on exhibit at the Croton River Artisans Gallery on Old Post Road South, just across from the Black Cow.

You might call Davis a modern impressionist. Indeed, Modern Impressionist Magazine did just that when it named her as a finalist in a competition last year. But unlike the classic 19th century impressionists, who played with the light reflected on the surface of things, there is something subdued and somber about Davis’s art that runs very deep.

In part, this is because Davis knows what it’s like to be in mourning. She lost her husband five years ago, and has lost other members of her family as well. “The art is what keeps me upright,” she says. “It’s about managing loss and celebrating what’s left. I am always figuring out how to manage grief.”

The grieving process inspired what is probably her best known work, “Reaching Through the Shadow,” the 9/11 Memorial at the end of Croton Landing she designed together with the architect James Rhodes. In that work, a standing woman reaches towards a real piece of the World Trade Center, a gesture Davis meant to represent both mourning and hope for the future.

“It’s for everyone who is mourning, everything,” she says. “It’s solemn and grieving but there is someplace to move towards.”

Photo courtesy of Lauren Davis

Lauren Davis is originally from the suburbs north of Chicago. In the late 1960s she moved to Santa Fe, where many an artist has received inspiration, and also spent time in Latin America, Boston, and other cities.

But in 1983 she moved to New York City, where she began attending NYU and taking playwriting classes. She ended up with an MFA degree from the university, but playwriting did not turn out to be her thing. Eventually she went into social work, receiving a LCSW degree from NYU and beginning her career in that field—which today is her “day job,” as she puts it. She works both at Open Door and conducts a private practice.

In many ways, not having to make a living as an artist liberated her to be one. Davis took classes and workshops, entered competitions, and struggled with artistic concepts such as distinguishing an edge from a “soft spot,” and understanding line and perspective. She worked in sculpture, where she depicted people, and she painted, focusing on the kind of plein air landscapes you can see now at the gallery.

“Until this year I would say I’m a student, but now I am an artist. I know where I am.”

“Hessian Hills” / Courtesy of Lauren Davis

In Lauren Davis’s backyard sculpture garden/ Photo courtesy of Lauren Davis

Davis was kind enough to let us close this brief portrait by quoting her own words about who she is and what her art means. Here they are, in a note she wrote to a friend:

“A friend of mine told me before this last show opened, he thought me brave for showing work. I feel lucky and appreciate being able to do it but I don’t feel brave during this part of the process;

“I don’t know if showing art requires bravery. To keep making it does. By the time I’m done with a piece I know it’s either good enough or it sucks. What takes energy or bravery ( or an open channel) is doing it again. Finding that place again. Sometimes it’s such a mysterious process. I am grateful to have found my way into a part of this world of visual expression. It sounds corny or so arty but it is in fact very much who I am. When I work with my hands I feel like I am connected to myself or perhaps not so aware of myself. The work is all mine and even if an audience doesn’t love it, I still get to do it. And if I do a painting that people do respond to doesn’t matter, how fat I am or how old I am or whether or not, I have wide feet. The work speaks about something that is very truthful from inside of me. There is some thing about that that holds me up and yet there is some thing in me, that resists saying how important it is to me; Because I guess it feels so selfish and of course it’s just my corner of things. But I find I sometimes process sorrow and discover great moments of glee making things.”

Calendar note: On Sunday, April 28, the Croton River Artisans Gallery will celebrate its second birthday. We are sure they would love it if you came.

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