Ring, one of Davis's "plastic paintings," marked a departure from his works on canvas. The artist made Ring "the same way one makes a fiberglass boat or car body"—by layering translucent polyester resin, fiberglass, and pigment in a Formica mold. Its machine-polished surface recalls the fiberglass surfboards of 1960s Los Angeles, while the painterly brushstrokes and illusion of receding space are traditional pictorial conventions, making Ring an intersection of painting, sculpture, and the manufactured object.
Gallery label from 2007.