Obviously, Davis Cone spends an amazing amount of time trying to make his paintings look realistic. This goal can only be achieved by working from high-quality, in-focus, detailed photographs. Each brush stroke must be smoothed so that the the surface of the painting looks like a photograph. Davis Cone works exclusively with acrylic paint, which dries quickly. Thus, colors can be difficult to blend with acrylic paint on canvas, but Davis Cone's paintings are painted to ensure that all blending seems natural and smooth.
Davis Cone paints movie theaters. Sometimes there are people passing by on the sidewalk, and often there are cars parked in the street. The human subjects are often seen from a distance, or their backs are turned to the viewer, so their faces are not visible. Some of the movie theaters are old; some have even been shut down. Davis Cone uses his subject matter to present a message to the viewer -- a message of loneliness, nostalgia and a sense of "outside looking in."
At first glance, Cone's color choices may seem to be based solely on the colors he saw in the photographs he took. However, there is a pattern to the colors in his photographs. Cone frequently chooses night scenes of theaters featuring neon signs, so there is a high contrast between the bright orange lights and the darkness surrounding them. These color choices draw in the viewer.
Davis Cone's paintings look like photographs. They even include photographic elements such as the blurry inclusion of a moving car and some elements of depth of field, which add to the realism. This is meant to give the viewer the sensation of a moment captured in time, as if one is looking out a window and seeing the world outside or glancing at a photograph at a real time and place from the past.