Colin H Davidson

Born 1961, and raised in Donaghadee Co. Down, now living in East Belfast. Married to Libby, he has two grown up children and one grandchild. Served his four year apprenticeship in Harland & Wolff from 1977-81 and a further nine years working in different departments leaving in 1990, now currently employed by Bombardier Aerospace as a Tool Design Engineer. Davidson has been interested in art most of his adult life and took up painting as a hobby in 1982. Attending different art clubs and colleges he soon realised that he had a slight colour blind imbalance with some green and brown colour tones. This frustrated him at the time, but he soon learnt to avoid what everyone else could see. Most of Davidson’s earlier work completed from 1985-1995 would have been related to either ships, seascapes or cityscapes, seldom working on landscapes.

In addition to the above he has been involved with two amateur dramatic societies designing backdrops. Influenced by modern day impressionist, Edward Seago and Trevor Chamberlain and more recently by American modernist painter, Edward Hopper. Harland & Wolff has changed dramatically since he left in 1990, but it hasn’t changed his memory. Over the last six years Davidson has been painting scenes from these memories, which have resulted in a sell out exhibition in May 2009. This was his first solo show and he overwhelmed that the public had supported him in such difficult times. We have such a rich Ship Building heritage in Northern Ireland, the more research Davidson does, the more his respect grows for the men and woman who worked there and the hardship most families went through.