Penny Davenport | Shallow Depths

OTP Copenhagen is proud to present 'Shallow Depths,' a solo exhibition of new paintings by Liverpool-based artist Penny Davenport (b. 1979, Inverness; UK) inaugurating the gallery's new location at Rantzausgade 9. Featuring a series of intimate watercolour on wood panel paintings, 'Shallow Depths' presents an honest and esoteric understanding of the human psyche. In these small and precious images, Davenport shines a hazy and pigment-soaked spotlight on the pregnant tensions that arise when the structure of social convention, or a lack of conscious understanding, gives rise to potent feelings and impulses that cannot, or must not, be articulated.

Depicting the anthropomorphic animal characters and daydreamed landscapes that have become the artist's signature motifs, here Davenport delves deeper into the psychological nuances of bodily experience and the inherent complexities of inter-personal relationships. Keenly aware of the learned patterns of repression that humans promote amongst themselves in the name of social order, the animalistic figures in these paintings gaze back at the viewer with a sense of mutual understanding - both of the alienation that can arise from strict withholding, but also of the disruptive and unacceptable thoughts that we force ourselves and those we find ourselves surrounded by, to contain.