The International Review of African American Art journal has recently published an essay on the work of Willis Bing Davis from Art History Professor Moyosore Okediji in their special issue. The issue includes a wide range of writing: "Michael D. Michael Harris delves into the legacy of the late artist and art collector Camille Billops. Melanee Harvey examines the tradition of Stained Glass art in African American religion. Margaret Rose Vendryes chronicles John T. Scott’s interdisciplinary career in the pre- and post-Hurricane Katrina periods. And Moyo Okediji explores Willis Bing Davis’ 'Ancestral Spirit Dance' series as a spiritual transport for viewers’ imaginations."
Okediji's essay, titled "Flying Back Home," utilizes the theoretical framework of Afrofuturism to examine the work of Bing Davis, whose photographs, oil pastel works, masks and ceramics are intertwined with his roles as a curator, teacher and community activist. His art can be found in public and private collections in the USA, England, China, Japan, France, Australia, plus Senegal, Ghana, Nigeria, Namibia, and Gabon on the Continent of Africa.
He participated in the 1999 exhibition Stop Asking: We Exist at the Society for Contemporary Crafts in Pittsburgh and was curator for the exhibition Uncommon Beauty in Common Objects: The Legacy of African American Craft Art that toured the United States in the mid-1990’s, organized by the National Afro-American Museum & Cultural Center in Wilberforce, OH.
Davis’ record as an artist and a curator is equally illustrious, including exhibitions at Studio Museum of Harlem, American Craft Museum, Renwick Gallery, Maryland Institute College of Art, Savannah College of Art and Design, Anacostia Museum, National Museum of Art of Senegal West Africa, United States Embassy Accra, Ghana and Museum fur Angewandte Kunst (Museum of Applied Arts, Frankfurt, Germany.