Art Scene: Charmain Davis

August 2009 By Lea Gleave

Bella Art Gallery this month welcomes Ipswich indigenous artist, Charmain Davis to the Gallery. Relatively new to the art scene, Charmain was born in Grafton, New South Wales and now lives and works in Ipswich, Queensland. She is a Goori woman of Gumbangger and Bundjalung descent. This area is in Northern New South Wales. Her family’s totem is Djanbun which is the platypus. She is the new generation of indigenous artist, her works are visually pleasing, introducing bold colours with double dot work which give them a contemporary edge.

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Charmain has been painting and drawing since she can remember. It’s in her blood. Every year her family gathers at Lionsville, about 90km’s from Grafton where they have their cleansing/smoking ceremony. This ceremony rejuvenates the mind, body and soul. It connects them to the land and to each other.

Charmain has been exhibiting in Brisbane professionally since 2006 and is excited to be now able to showcase her works in galleries closer to home. She is devoted to her heritage and draws upon her family and homeland for inspiration. With most indigenous works, hundreds of hours worth of intricate detailed (not to mention back straining) work goes into developing the artist journey.


As a gallery owner, I really appreciate indigenous work, for me they are spiritually active and I have utmost respect for an artist who can sit there spending hours and hours intricately weaving thousands of little “exact” dots to make a story that has been channeled through family stories, some of which are thousands of years old. I have known Charmain for the last couple of years and have watched her development unfold, she is pure professional all the way. Charmain has been a part of NAIDOC and has also attended many aboriginal festivals in NSW. She recently won a grant to run her own Exhibition at the Ipswich Community Art Gallery, her works are bold and fresh and the quality unsurpassed. Her works are extremely well priced for the hours given to painting each piece and she has priced them at entry level. They would certainly make a statement in either an entrance way in a home or commercial office.

Her latest series of dot paintings represent the journey of her and her ancestor’s lives, as well as representing the mighty Clarence River which is in Grafton where she is from. “Charmain’s ethos is that everything has a beginning and an end. Like the river and our lives it meanders here and there and takes us on a journey of discovery”.

Charmain works are produced on high quality hand made Manelli of Noosa canvases and she only works in professional quality atelier acrylic paint, each piece is finished in varnish ensuring its longevity.