iPhone Art Exhibit Comes to Davis Next Month

Davis Arts Center is honored to welcome the return of Dave Webb and a new collection of his amazing photographs for our November exhibition, Drama in Agriculture. With a dog in the backseat, Dave and his spouse, Melinda, have been driving the backroads of Yolo and Solano Counties for at least a decade, capturing images with his trusty iPhone.

What you will see on display were all done using his pocket photo studio: an iPhone and a variety of apps. The images range in size from 20"x30" to 5"x7" and are printed on metal and paper, or are housed in "glowing frames." The exhibit runs November 7 through the 17. There will be a free Second Friday ArtAbout reception on Friday, November 9, from 6 - 8pm. Dave will be present and enjoys discussing his work. Drama In Agriculture is sponsored in part by Bay Photo Lab of Santa Cruz.

Some photographers have been slow to accept phone photography, decrying the format and stating that "anyone can do it." Poor arguments when you consider the number of a pots and pans found in kitchens, but a lack of Alice Waters or Mario Batalis therein. Dave's mastery of his tools is clearly evident. His keen eye for composition, line and color can been seen in every image. But Dave's work is much more than technically proficient, for he brings an understanding and empathy of the subject matter: be it the emblematic, red tomatoes dotting the shoulder of a curvy county road awaiting the end of the canicule or the mystery of the erratically painted traffic lines out on the road to the dump. His manipulations often pull a viewer into the image to careful examine the content, context, composition or simply to further enjoy. Dave has captured the drama that can be found in agriculture, but also the transitory nature of life.

Dave Webb has lived in Davis since 1974 with Melinda Welsh, his spouse and founding editor of the Sacramento News & Review. He has shown his iPhone photography extensively in the area including From Darkroom to Digital (2015) and the "very cool" exhibit (KCRA) Saturate Yolo (2013), both at Davis Arts Center.

Additionally, he was featured in the joint exhibit You Were Here (2014) with painter Steve Barbaria and featured in Saturate Sacramento (2013). Dave was selected by SACRAMENTO365.com as their featured artist for November 2014. In the international Mobile Photography Awards, his All Seeing, Not All Knowing won Honorable Mention in 2017. You can view examples of his work at www.davewebbcreative.com

In addition to the exhibit, by proclamation of the Davis City Council and the citizens of the City of Davis, November 2018 is Phone Art Month in Davis. The proclamation in-part encourages residents "to embrace all types of visual art, both established and new; and urge[s] residents to participate in the joy of creation by participating in Phone Art Month in Davis by visiting the [sic] Davis Arts Center exhibit and taking photos and posting them to the web during November at http://www.facebook.com/PhoneArtInDavis?fref=ts"

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