Magic Camp n. 16, 1972

Alan Davie  

Mixed media on paper realized by Alan Davie in 1972.

Hand signed and dated lower left.

Titled upper left.

A vibrant and highly characteristic work by Alan Davie, encapsulates the artist's celebrated post-war visual language—an imaginative synthesis of abstract expression, private symbolism, and playful, ritual-like imagery.

Executed in 1972, at the height of Davie's mature period, the composition unfolds like a pictographic theatre: a boldly simplified interior space is animated by floating signs, totemic motifs, and brightly articulated forms, rendered with the immediacy of improvisation and the deliberation of a personal code.

Dominating the scene is a checkered, altar-like structure supporting a stylized sculptural head, accompanied by emblematic elements—crescent form, spiral figure, and scattered dot clusters—suggesting Davie's enduring fascination with music, mythology, and the spiritual dimension of mark-making. The palette is vivid and rhythmic, with saturated greens, reds, ochres and blacks set against open, luminous reserves of paper. The surface bears evidence of layered techniques—brushwork, staining, and graphic line—typical of Davie's mixed-media approach, where spontaneity and structure coexist.

Presented in a frame, this sheet stands as a compelling example of Davie's iconographic universe, where abstract form becomes narrative and the picture plane reads as a site of performance and invention.