For an artist still in her very early 30s, Kate Davis has already made a remarkable international splash. Originally from New Zealand but based in Glasgow, she landed a solo show at the Kunsthalle in Basel, Switzerland, two years ago, followed by a show at the Tate Britain in London. She lectures part-time at the Glasgow School of Art, and has participated in dozens of solo and group shows across Europe.

Davis’s work crosses media boundaries, most often based in drawing but incorporating photography, art history, installation, and collage, creating a wide-ranging interpretation and re-interpretation of the existence of art itself. And when Davis arrived in Banff last fall for a seven week residency in Visual Arts, she was ready to make a creative leap into a new medium — video.

The result, screened for fellow artists in The Banff Centre’s Cosmic Ray residency in October, keeps many of the themes that Davis has long incorporated into her work. It includes references to art history and feminist thought — in this case, one of Modigliani’s famously recognizable elongated female figures — and adds a surreal fluidity that couldn’t have been achieved with a more static medium. The experimental application of video and sound has given Davis an opportunity to explore familiar themes in new depth.

“This is the first time I’ve had the chance to work with moving image,” Davis says. “It’s definitely a new departure for my work.”

The video, called Disgrace, advances through an increasingly detailed marking up and scratching over of the Modigliani sketch in a paperback art book, interspersed with an echoing, exaggerated vocal reaction to the “desecration” of a 20th-century masterwork. “I wanted to put my own stamp on this blank, female representation,” Davis says. “It becomes a conversation between two works.” She adds that as in all her work, she’s not presenting a critique of previous artists’ work, but instead is interested in creating a dialogue between those historic artists and the creative world she lives in.

Many of Davis’s recent projects have involved re-imagining the work of mid- and late-20th century artists — including abstract expressionist painter Willem de Kooning and 80s art star and text-centric collage artist Barbara Kruger — through the lens of contemporary feminist thought. She often creates art about art — drawings of sculptures, or drawings of other drawings, always in a meticulous, near-photorealist style. Currently working on an exploration of the work of controversial American choreographer and filmmaker Yvonne Rainer, Davis took advantage of the Banff residency to discuss her projects with noted London artist and Cosmic Ray faculty member Janice Kerbel and to explore the extensive art film collection in the Centre’s Paul D. Fleck Library & Archives. The experimental video she made in Banff may also be incorporated into the Rainer project.

“I’m still so green to the technology,” Davis says. “But I wanted to take advantage of all the resources in Banff, like the recording suite, while I had access to them. I come from a printmaking background, and it made sense to work with a medium I’m unfamiliar with.”

As an artist who reflects on historic works of art, and the creative inspiration of artists over time, Davis immersed herself in the whole, rounded experience of The Banff Centre, attending music concerts, meeting and dining with artists from other disciplines, and getting out into the wider environment. One revelation was discovering Inuit throat singing at the Aboriginal Arts concert Songs Above the Treeline. “To be able to stumble across something like that was fantastic,” she says.

Davis hopes to build on the connections with artists and curators made in Banff, possibly in future collaborations. Davis’s residency was supported by the Glenfiddich Artist in Residence program, which partnered in 2008 with The Banff Centre for an exchange between the Centre and the distillery’s artist residence in Scotland. Her experience expands a network that is central to the workings of the Centre and in particular Visual Arts, under the leadership of recently appointed director Kitty Scott.

And for Davis, the Banff residency will most likely lead to further explorations in video and sound. “I spent the first few weeks just finding out what’s possible with these new tools,” she says. “As I went, the project evolved, and became not just about looking more intently at film, but also about using it as well. I would definitely like to keep working in video.”

Image: Your Body is a Battleground Still (poster) 2, 2007 (framed pencil on paper), courtesy of Kate Davis and Sorcha Dallas, Glasgow, UK.