Recent Acquisition by Glen C. Davies on View at Krannert Art Museum
It’s almost like local artist Glen C. Davies can cast a spell. His Mystery Box draws us to come closer, to peer at the painting on the cabinet door and then inside to glimpse rich colors and a magical stage setting.
When Mystery Box was hung directly on the wall at Krannert Art Museum, the dangling anchor-shaped door handle proved irresistible—even though it was too delicate to hold up to visitors grasping it and swinging the door open. So the museum’s installation team recently created a custom mount and display case. Now both the exterior and interior are visible.
Vividly rendered, Davies’ work straddles real and imaginary worlds, where vibrant colors, fantastical forms, and precise lines often reveal psychic landscapes. In Mystery Box, he uses personal symbols to explore the mystery of existence—ziggurats relate to spirituality, an expansive sky reflects a closeness to spiritual consciousness, and snakes embody the balance between life and death. It takes on a theatrical presence, in the image with stage curtains and proscenium-like levels that frame the action, but also through its physical form. When the Mystery Box door swings open, a similar yet new world is exposed.
Davies grew up in Chicago and attended the School of the Art Institute. He remembers, “I would go every day. That was one of the advantages of being a student at the Art Institute—that you could go in on a daily basis.”
After fulfilling a childhood dream of traveling with the circus, he worked for a short time as a billboard artist and sign painter, eventually opening a mural painting business. He moved to Champaign-Urbana in the 1970s. Since receiving an MFA in painting from the University of Illinois in 1981, Davies has divided his time between studio pursuits and a variety of alternative employment including circus/carnival show painter, sideshow banner artist, professional muralist, curator, and educator. He has taught painting courses at the University of Illinois, Illinois State University, and Bradford College, in addition to four decades of workshops statewide through the Illinois Arts Council.
Davies’ work can be found in many collections including Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History, Krannert Art Museum, Georgia Museum of Art, American Academy of Pediatrics, Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University, Illinois State Museum, and the Roger Brown Study Collection, now at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Wisconsin.
As a guest curator at Krannert Art Museum, Davies presented Palace of Wonders: Sideshow Banners of the Circus and Carnival (1999), co-curated with Randy Johnson; Cosmic Consciousness: The Works of Robert Bannister (2006); and Stranger in Paradise: The Works of Howard Finster (2010), which traveled to six additional venues.
Davies exhibited artwork recently as part of the Boneyard Arts Festival. Many of his murals around town are favorites with young fans, including a delightful animal tea party on a pediatrician’s waiting room wall and a giant fairy tale tree with woodland creatures on the staircase to the Children’s section at the Urbana Free Library.
Davies’ Mystery Box is a recent acquisition currently on view in Art Since 1948 in the Rosann Gelvin Noel Gallery. If you haven’t already, please stop by Krannert Art Museum to see this artwork in person!
In addition to new acquisitions like Mystery Box, the museum is featuring a special exhibition with artwork by eleven University of Illinois School of Art & Design faculty members: Another Place: Storymaking the Entangled Prairie (on view through July 2). Enjoy an Artist Talk & Tour led by exhibiting artists Joel Ross (studio art) and Nekita Thomas (graphic design) on Saturday, June 13, at 10:30 a.m. For details about exhibitions and summer events, visit kam.illinois.edu.
Krannert Art Museum summer hours: Tuesday–Friday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m., and Saturday, 10 a.m.–4 p.m. Free and open to everyone! Parking nearby is free on weekends.
Evelyn C. Shapiro is assistant director for marketing and communications at Krannert Art Museum.
The News-Gazette (May 2026)
