Isaac Davies | Photo by Breonny Lee
By Taylor Adams Cogan
Deep Ellum is privileged to be covered with murals throughout its corridors. It’s something we can easily take for granted as we make the same walks down the streets. But go to another city, and that emptiness you feel surrounded by blank walls can remind you: Part of what makes Deep Ellum vibrant is the countless hours artists have spent painting its walls.
A number of those brick canvases are filled with color thanks to artist Isaac (IZK) Davies, who has been creating murals in Deep Ellum for more than 20 years. You can find his work from the Bark Park to various businesses’ walls throughout the neighborhood.
The Dallas-raised artist is talented, sure, but he may have never had a chance to escape creating.
“It started with my family. I’m one of three children, and all of us became artists; so are my parents, grandparents, and uncles. There’s just kind of a lineage thing,” Isaac says. “I don’t remember a time I wasn’t doing art. I grew up in a really supportive environment for that, giving me a step ahead of others – putting myself out there, not being concerned with approval.”
He grew up drawing and started painting in high school. As Isaac dove into comic books and illustration, his work developed into graffiti in what he calls his rebellious years as a young adult.
Joining friends skateboarding in 1997 or ‘98, he says, is what first took him to Deep Ellum. They’d run around downtown and cross to the neighborhood, noticing something different happening as they switched neighborhoods.
“After a few years of getting to know the neighborhood and developing connections with people, I knew that was where everything was centralized: where you could run into someone like yourself or someone interested in the same thing,” he says. “It’s a magnetic place for creatives, my visual artists, musician friends.”
It was easy for him to find them. Through the late 1990s and early 2000s, he’d go downtown and meet friends from Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, and easily find artists creating throughout Deep Ellum. It was only natural he’d find his start in Central Dallas.
“As a muralist, Deep Ellum was the first place that gave me a shot: ‘Here’s a wall, do your thing,’ ‘I have a bar and need signage,’ a wide variety of things people would call on me to do,” he says. “It’s probably because of that neighborhood that I was encouraged to say yes to everything. I’ve done a lot of work down there, and it started from people in the neighborhood giving me the opportunity.”
You can find Isaac’s work throughout Dallas, with the highest concentration in Deep Ellum.
“I do wear the badge of being a Deep Ellum artist,” he says. “ It’s the top thing I mention. It encapsulates so much variety. I’ve traveled all over the world, and I still consider Deep Ellum to be the most comfortable place to be painting.”
And that painting comes up in strong lines, vibrant colors, and instantly moving imagery. His murals show both realism and hyper-realism, each one telling a story. You can find animals, Native American figures and themes, and pop culture. He can grasp an assignment to execute or create freely. He’s able to make whatever situation beautiful and compelling. Maybe that’s because it’s easy to see his joy and pride in the work, especially when it’s in a specific neighborhood.
“There’s a thread that runs through all of Deep Ellum that has lasted longer than any of us have been alive, and it will go on,” he says. “If you’re a creative person, you do belong there, and there is opportunity there. It may not look like it, but the vibe and the energy of what is happening there is just kind of unexplainable, but it comes down to people being there and doing their thing.”
They’ve been doing it for more than 150 years, so here’s to hoping creatives keep doing their thing in Deep Ellum.
