Davina Stephens
Davina is a young , internationally known artist.
Having grown up in places as diverse as Bali, India and New York, Davina developed early in her life a taste for humour, incongruities, chaos and ironies of a world in throes of rapid change. and that became the canvas of her art.

Using bold and vibrant colours, and using innovative techniques ,like stretching the limit of the canvas, by painting over the edges onto the carved frames ,Davina's paintings are like unpretentious, personal diaries, bubbling with optomism and exploding with innocent joy and energy, taking the viewer into a psychedelic world ,where the most mundane, everyday things errupt into something fresh, alive, beautiful and bursting at the seams.

As Bernard Fouilloux of Galerie Du Rayon Vert in Paris said "Davina paints the way she lives ,with 'Appetite.'"
"For me painting is like producing a play in the theatre, The first drawings are like setting the stage, the painting process is where I fill in the characters and the story ,and the culmination of the detailing is like laying out the entire narrative. Then the story tells its self."

By juxtaposing modern symbols with old world scenarios, technology with tradition, new ways with old ones, the vulgar with the worshipped, and the sacred with the profane , Davina's work seems to be saying to us that this is a world in the chaos of its transition, and all the contradictions, paradoxes and incongruities inherent in it, are what make it significant, and that, instead of judging it and trying to separate one from the other, we should see it as seamless and celebrate the beauty of that.

Therefore her images of a Buddhist monk with a can of coke or a priest on a mountain top glued to his cellphone do not disturb us, and we embrace the apparent vulgarity with a smile.
And that is her intention.

Today when most serious art seems intent on exploring the underbelly or the darker side of human emotion and experience, Davina's paintings are like a breathe of fresh air, served "sunny side up" making us aware once again that life despite all the pain, suffering ,conflicts and contradictions is still wonderful and we should not forget its celebration.

Davina Stephens has shown her work Internationally in countries like Indonesia, France, Australia, U.S.A. and India, and is the recipient of numerous awards.