Annalee Davis represented by AWL

Annalee Davis, Pray to Flowers, 2022 - 2023

Annalee Davis (Barbados, 1963) is a Barbadian visual artist and writer whose practice combines history and biography in discussions of ‘post-plantation economies’ with cultural activism in the arts sector. Davis’ works explore Barbados’ transformation from a once biodiverse landscape to sugar plantations and more recently a tourism- dependent island-both arguably sectors of enclosure and exclusion. She understands the plantation as an economic model irrevocably impacting the contemporary environment whose historical legacy has been traumatically inscribed upon the landscape and its people. Working in her studio located on an operational dairy farm–once a 17th- century plantation– Davis exposes the poly-vocal narratives buried beneath the land. Drawing, walking, making (bush) teas, and growing living apothecaries, her practice suggests future strategies for repair and thriving while investigating the role of botanicals and living plots as ancestral sites of refusal, counter- knowledge, and healing. A Caribbean activist nurturing more equitable platforms for emerging artists, her work as the Founding Director of Fresh Milk, and co-founder of Caribbean Linked, Tilting Axis, and Sour Grass–promotes pan-Caribbean community engagement by working with artists across the multi-lingual archipelago. Collectively, they reinforce the healthy growth of contemporary visual arts in the region by working with artists who often feel marginalised from mainstream society.

Davis graduated with an MFA from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and a BFA from The Maryland Institute, College of Art, USA. Upcoming and recent solo exhibitions include “It’s the Beauty That Will Save Us”, Colorado Springs Fine Art Center at Colorado College (2026), Colorado, USA; “In the Sugar Gardens”, Airas Wang de Lafée Gallery, Girona, Spain; “re:wilding”, Haarlem Artspace, UK; “Heartseed”, TEOR/éTica, Costa Rica; “This Ground Beneath My Feet – A Chorus of Bush in Rab Lands” The Idea Lab, The Warfield Center, University of Texas, Austin, USA.

Group exhibitions include “As Land Remembers”, Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, USA; “Welto and the Sacred Bush”, Spore Initiative, Berlin, Germany; “Soil: the World at Our Feet”, Somerset House, London, UK; “Spirit in the Land”, The Cummer Museum, Perez Art Museum Miami, Nasher Museum, USA; “Seeds and Souls”, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, Denmark; “Against Apartheid”, KARST, Plymouth, UK; “Linhas Tortas”, Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo, Brazil; “Sharjah Biennial 15: Thinking Historically in the Present”, Sharjah, UAE; “What’s on your Plate?”, Hayy Jameel, Jeddah, UAE; “And if I devoted my life to one of its feathers?” Kunsthalle Wien, Austria; “Seismic Movements”, Dhaka Art Summit, Bangladesh; “Caribbean: Crossroads of the World” , El Museo del Barrio, Studio Museum Harlem, Queens Museum and Perez Art Museum Miami, USA.

‍Pray to Flowers: This suite of embroidered panels acknowledges British sewing traditions that Barbadian women inherited over several centuries. Practiced across races and classes, their habitual utilization of the needle and thread instilled notions of what it meant to be feminine. Pre-approved imagery, stitches, and colours replicated across samplers were part and parcel of the training of middle- and upper-class women into becoming submissive housewives who abided by the church’s teachings and moral codes of respectability.

Instead of producing decorative works for the living room, once the prescribed domain of women, or adorning the surfaces of dressing tables, these tapestries link the plantation and the sixth extinction. Cyanotypes of local botanicals growing in Annalee Davi’s garden acknowledge flora native to this place rather thanthe bluebells and cockleshells found in the embroidered tablecloths of my mother’s generation, fashioned on prescribed patterns they were encouraged to fabricate. Satin stitch is employed to emphasize a sequence of phrases, advocating for example the worship of flowers, and the need to unlearn the plantation or defend nature.

Collectively, the works recognize the inherent value in the bio-diverse plots nurtured by enslaved Barbadian society, praised for their use value, although situated within the larger capitalist machinery of the plantation. In their making, these works appreciate the gathering of women who joined me in their slow construction, thread by thread, words by many words, and the inherent need to commemorate slow cultural work communally.

‍AWL: Founded in 2024, AWL is headquartered in Girona (Spain), with an expanding presence in Al Ain (Abu Dhabi) and Los Angeles (USA). The gallery represents emerging and established voices whose transdisciplinary practices explore socio-cultural dynamics, the human experience, and the complexities of diaspora. AWL places strong emphasis on discourse that challenges conceptual boundaries while fostering cross-cultural dialogue across diverse artistic traditions and audiences. With a curatorial approach rooted in social awareness, AWL engages with the global art community through transnational collaboration and experimental initiative.

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