Penny Davenport

Penny Davenport，1979 年出生於英國因弗內斯，2002年畢業於英國利物浦約翰摩爾斯大學。藝術家深受藝術史的啟發，包括二十一世紀的日本繪畫以及美國、英國和印度藝術家持續探索的實驗裝置等。長年任職於多種教育機構的她，包括服務於有特教需求之兒童的專門學校，種種經歷使其創作深受「人如何被社會化」所影響。作品曾於哥本哈根、東京、柏林與紐約等地展出，目前生活與居住在英國利物浦。

Penny透過擬人化的動物角色與如天馬行空般的風景描繪，探究身體經驗中的心理細微差異，人際關係所蘊含的複雜結構，以及社會群體結構如何得以延續。這些角色有著明顯的「非人」特徵，卻呈現出像是人類意志般，帶有同理與理解情感的目光凝視觀者。這些如同卡通般親密友善，卻不透過語言溝通的曖昧存在，召喚出矛盾又渴望被理解的情感線索，試圖引起對主體意識的投射，以及對自我的詭異辨識。這些視覺語彙中，同時指向受悲劇經驗或成熟意識驅動的源頭，使觀者初見時，能從被漸漸遺忘的童年記憶，或一段未完成的敘事片段中，觸碰那充滿脆弱動盪，卻又令人感到獨一無二的心靈祕密。

Penny Davenport, born in 1979 in Inverness, UK. She received a BA from Liverpool John Moores University in 2002. Heavily indebted in art history, Davenport’s work is in dialogue with a range of influences that include: twenty-first-century Japanese painting and certain installation-based practices being explored by artists based between the USA, the UK, and India. Having worked for many years in a number of educational establishments, including specialized schools for children with very specific pedagogic needs, Davenport’s practice is informed by a particular attention towards how humans are socialized. Her works have previously been shown worldwide, including in Copenhagen, Tokyo, Berlin, and New York. Currently, the artist lives and is based in Liverpool, UK. 

Through depictions of anthropomorphic animal figures set within dreamlike landscapes, she explores the psychological nuances of embodied experience and the complexity of interpersonal relationships. Her work further examines the underlying structures that sustain social groups. The figures that appear in Davenport’s compositions are decidedly non-human, yet they perform human traits: they gaze out at the viewer with eyes that suggest feelings of empathy and understanding. These cartoon-like yet non-verbal presences occupy an ambiguous emotional register. While their visual intimacy invites yearning, their silence generates tension—evoking contradictory feelings of comfort and unease. In this ambiguity, the figures prompt projections of agency and an uncanny recognition of selfhood, as if hinting at an inner life parallel to our own. Beneath the apparent friendliness of Davenport’s visual language lies a more somber impulse. This undercurrent is shaped by experiences of maturity, vulnerability, and latent tragedy. At first glance, viewers may touch upon those fragile, turbulent yet uniquely personal secrets of the soul—whether from childhood memories gradually fading from memory or fragments of an unfinished narrative.