Ronald Davis has for forty years been at the forefront of American art. From the time he emerged upon the west coast art scene in the 1960s, creating paintings from industrial resins, his work has demonstrated his genius for depicting spatial relationships. Subsequently, his creativity roamed from electronic music to highly complex computer art. This exhibition, however, features seldom seen acrylic abstractions from the 1980s. Among his most passionate and intensely personal works, the eight paintings that make up this show comprise a dazzling universe of color and light.

— David Witt, Curator

The Music Series represents an “outside the box” departure from my trademark perspective illusionistic works of the 1960s and ‘70s. Even though the prior work contained painterly and expressionistic elements, I felt trapped inside the boxes of time and space. With the Music Series, I returned to my roots as an Abstract Expressionist, pouring out my accumulated knowledge of the activity of making paintings. I ask you to judge this body of work as paintings, and to let the art part take care of itself. They are, in no small measure, a reaction to the fickle and difficult art world of the 1970s and ‘80s. They are, too, an homage to my heroes: painter Jackson Pollock, composer Charles Ives, and instrument builder Don Buchla. They were painted with my heart, and not with my intellect.

— Ronald Davis, November 2004

Tom Collins Review in the Albuquerque Journal, December 17, 2005 during the show Ronald Davis: Music Series: 1983-85 at the Harwood Museum of Art, Taos, New Mexico in December 2004.

Elizabeth Cook-Romero Review of the Harwood exhibition of the Music Series,
"Magnetic North, Far From the Buzz," The Santa Fe New Mexican | Pasatiempo


Music Series Paintings included in the exhibition:

1. Nova Comet, 1983 80 x 66 inches, acrylic on canvas

2. Cursor, 1984 29 1/2 x 15 3/4 inches, acrylic on canvas

3. Chord, 1984 114 x 184 5/8 inches, acrylic on canvas

4. Frequency Modulation, 1984 80 x 93 1/8 inches, acrylic on canvas

5. Instrument, 1984 90 x 57 1/2 inches, acrylic on canvas

6. Spectral, 1984 88 5/8 x 68 5/8 inches, acrylic on canvas

7. Dolce, 1984 90 x 57 1/2 inches, acrylic on canvas

8. Theramin, 1985 96 x 66 inches, acrylic on canvas