Alonzo Davis, an artist who specialized in assemblages and mixed-media sculptures, liked to work in series, taking a single element and spending years iterating on it. Much of his work was public and included murals for the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles and an installation for the Philadelphia International Airport. But his mark on the art world stretched far beyond his own creations.
In 1967, Mr. Davis and his brother, Dale Brockman Davis, established the Brockman Gallery in Los Angeles amid a surge of Black cultural activity, born out of the racial tensions that marked the decade. The venue gave Black artists a place to introduce their paintings and sculptures and a way to sidestep the limitations of a mainstream art market dominated by white artists and gallery owners. And it became a cultural center where politics, art and education intertwined.
Influenced by his travels across the American South, Africa and Latin America, Mr. Davis often mixed styles. His Blanket series, an acrylic patchwork arranged on canvas and paper, hints at Kente cloth patterns, which he had seen on a trip to Ghana.
Arrows were a recurring motif, symbolizing “a fork in the road,” as Mr. Davis explained in a 1991 interview with the U.C.L.A. Library Center for Oral History Research. “It represents decision-making, deciding which way to go,” he said, adding that he later used the direction of the arrows to indicate a mood (up or down) or a political leaning (left).
Always self-referential in his work, Mr. Davis began his Inside series in the 1970s featuring his bearded and bespectacled profile.
In 1983, Mr. Davis was placed in charge of a 10-artist project to create murals along the Los Angeles freeways for the 1984 Olympics. His own contribution, the triptych seen below, appeared along a retaining wall on the Harbor Freeway.
Among his best-known series was “Power Poles,” a decade-long exploration of burnished bamboo, a symbol of authority in West African cultures.
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