Lisa Corinne Davis, “Deliberate Deceit” (2020), oil on canvas, 50 x 40 inches (courtesy Jenkins Johnson Gallery; photo Pete Mauney)
Lisa Corinne Davis: My father died when I was young. I grew up with my mother, who worked two jobs to send me and my brother to private school. She believed that if you’re going to be a successful person in the world there are things you have to know: classical music, art, dance, and theater. She really had no education in the arts whatsoever — so she made sure we did.
We would go to the Baltimore Museum of Art. I spent a lot of time with the Cone Collection of modern art. I was fascinated by the idea of it. I thought about who would collect all of that work. I liked the space itself — the quiet of it. It gave me the chance to act differently than I did in other spaces in my life. I loved the idea of looking for that long, and making sense of the work. That experience was more important to me than individual works or specific artists.
