River Davis

River Davis is an American multidisciplinary artist known for exploring the impact of post-internet culture on social consciousness. He has exhibited in Los Angeles, New York, Berlin, Hungary, Portugal, France, and Hong Kong, and is the youngest c...

River Davis is an American multidisciplinary artist known for exploring the impact of post-internet culture on social consciousness. He has exhibited in Los Angeles, New York, Berlin, Hungary, Portugal, France, and Hong Kong, and is the youngest contributor to Bernar Venet's annual summer exhibition at the Venet Foundation. He has also collaborated with Bernar Venet to produce works that have been featured at Perrotin Paris. River has collaborated with Bernar Venet on multiple projects, alongside his long-time collaborator S. Ryan O'Connor, including "EVENT," the second long-form generative collection released in partnership with Sotheby's. River's international presence is a testament to his innovative approach to systematic art and the context it brings to our origins as a consumer culture, as well as its manufacturing of consent through appropriation and propaganda. His work combines digital and physical mediums, inviting viewers on a journey of self-exploration amidst an era preoccupied with external social validation and superficial consumer rhetoric. River was born in the United States of America in 1989 and studied art from a young age, thanks to the influence of his grandmother, a talented watercolor painter, photographer, and esteemed Urban Planner and Teacher. Their frequent trips to the National Gallery of Art and the Hirshhorn had a profound impact, as did the time they shared watching Twilight Zone, Star Trek: The Original Series, 007, and an assortment of Hanna-Barbera and Looney Tunes television programming. Studying visual rhetoric, media production, art, and design at Florida State University led River into a career as a Creative Director, studying and producing creative photo, video, and design content across Asia, Europe, India, and the United States. He has been heavily influenced not only by American subcultures of pulp, comics, pop art, appropriations, and animation but also by his on-site studies of Swiss design, Hungarian film production, Hindu and Buddhist design principles, and new media studies in Berlin. He is an avid meditator, practicing yogi, and facilitator of conscious masculinity, using his art and lifestyle to help elevate human consciousness. He sees himself as a design-first artist, with a focus on context and narrative delivery, independent of the medium. This philosophy has allowed him a vast artistic practice across mediums, producing and designing everything from 3D-printed sculpture, multimedia installations, animations, product and furniture design systems, to sustainable fashion collections, all as a means of rebellion against the low-quality mass production driven by consumer capitalism. Occasionally, River produces art under the pseudonym "Dr.BannerX," whose work uses novel consumer engagement systems as a medium, critiquing the Americana ideologies that formed the framework for consumer culture. Fusing emergent technologies with historically relevant multimedia, Dr.BannerX creates surreal experiences that merge nostalgia and awareness, turning broadcast media, newspapers, currency, tabloids, and other engagement systems into artistic mediums that invite audiences to co-create art dynamically realized through viewer engagement. You can learn more about River by visiting his portfolio at: