Biography:
Born in Belfast in 1947, John T. Davis studied painting at Belfast School of Art. On inheriting an 8mm camera, he taught himself the basics of filmmaking, completing his first short film, What Colour Is The Bird? in 1978. With its mobile hand-held cameras and its observational style, Davis’ debut documentary, Shellshock Rock (1971), about the punk music scene in Northern Ireland, established many of the themes and techniques of his subsequent work. Davis shot two documentaries in the United States, Route 66 and Hobo, which observed life on the margins of society and on the road. Between these two projects, he returned to Northern Irish subjects with his explorations of fundamentalist religion within Northern Ireland’s Protestant communities, Power in the Blood and Dust on the Bible. In his 1996 documentary, The Uncle Jack Davis turned the camera on himself and his family, in particular the eponymous Uncle Jack, who had designed some of Northern Ireland’s most iconic cinemas in the 1930s and 1940s and had given him his first camera. Davis has also worked as cinematographer on a number of films including Before I Sleep (1997) and The Mighty Celt (2005). He co-directed with Alen MacWeeney the documentary about Travellers, Traveller (2000).
The piece in the current exhibition is from Route 66.
