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Artist Info

"Courtney Davis...offers Celtic Art as displays of richness and color, intricacy and symbolism to equal the world's finest styles"

Arts & Crafts Magazine

A profile of Courtney Davis

by Michael Ball - published in Craftsman Magazine, March 2000.

Driving into Abbotsbury on the South coast of Dorset is like driving into a page out of an Arthurian legend, which is appropriate as the person I'm on my way to meet is Courtney Davis, an artist whose designs evoke the spirit and style of the Celtic illuminators of more than a thousand years ago.

Courtney lives with his wife Dimity and his two children, five-year-old Blaine and four year old Bridie in Salway Ash, a village near Bridport in the South of England. His small studio is immediately opposite the house, which is convenient as Courtney often works from six in the morning to eight o'clock at night in a converted eleventh century tithe barn, which he uses as his studio. On the windowsill there are genuine relics of St.Bridgit, St.Patrick and St.Columba, each one protected in a small wooden frame. These ancient relics share the room with some decidedly modern companions - a photocopier, fax and computer. Courtney uses the computer to create layouts for book pages and to work on his web site celtic-art.com, but admits to having something of a love-hate relationship with it! All of Courtney's paintings are still produced entirely by hand.

Courtney is currently working on 'A Treasury of Viking Designs', one of more than thirty-six books of his work that have been produced over the last twelve years. The amount of work in some of these books is staggering. One of his latest releases St.Patrick - A visual Celebration has 128 pages with a color illustration on every page. Most of the images are very detailed but he works incredibly quickly and often manages to complete one illustration a day.

Each image starts with a simple pencil sketch before progressing to a full-size rough drawing. This rough is then taped to the back of a glass drawing board, which is positioned with a light source behind it. Courtney then paints the completed color image using this rough as a guide. Most of the designs are painted on watercolor paper or artists' board using no more than six or seven colors of artists' gouache. The distinctive speckled effect that is a feature of many of Courtney's designs is applied over the gouache using technical drawing pens and brushes. This description makes Courtney's work sound like engineering drawing, but this couldn't be further from the truth. Courtney often feels that he is being guided. He tells me "When I start a picture I don't necessarily know what I'm going to draw - often the image will change as I'm working on it. It's taken me a long time to learn to just go with the flow of the picture rather than trying to plan how it's going to develop."

Courtney also manages to find time to create work for exhibitions. This year sees the start of the first major travelling exhibition of Courtney's designs. The exhibition will open in Oslo before moving to France and the United States. However, this sort of success didn't fall into Courtney's lap, but has come through consistent hard work against the odds.

The title page of
The Celtic Art of Courtney Davis, published in 1985

Looking at Courtney's designs today, it's hard to believe that he has had no artistic training, but went straight from school into a job working in a grocer's shop. Unfortunately the job didn't last long. Courtney was born with a back problem, and lifting heavy boxes of fruit and vegetables exacerbated these problems. Courtney was forced to look for other work. He took a position as an apprentice gold engraver and jewelry designer using diamond cutting tools to engrave designs on wedding rings. He soon discovered that he had a natural talent for the job, and found that his designs were in demand. He might have stayed with this job for the rest of his life, but a dramatic series of events occurred that turned his life around. In 1974 with worsening back pain, Courtney went into hospital to undergo major corrective surgery on his spine. He was lying in the hospital bed after the operation when he found himself looking at his own body from the other side of the room and saw another operation being performed, this time not by the surgeons, but by a group of ethereal monks. This experience and the death of his father soon afterwards lead Courtney to question what he really wanted from his life. He decided to quit his job as a gold engraver and joined a Buddhist temple in London.