Davida Allen is a Queensland artist. As a student at Brisbane's Stuartholme School in the 1960s she had Betty Churcher as an art teacher. Later, she studied under Roy Churcher at the Brisbane Central Technical College. She had solo exhibitions at Ray Hughes gallery from 1973 to 1988, a solo retrospective show at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Brisbane in 1988, and solo exhibitions at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1983 and 1987, and has participated in many group exhibitions. In the 1980s she gained notoriety with a series of erotic works depicting actor Sam Neill. She was a popular Archibald winner in 1986 with a portrait of her father-in-law, John Shera, watering his garden. She has written and illustrated two books, The Autobiography of Vicki Myers: Close to the Bone and What is a Portrait? and she wrote and directed the loosely autobiographical feature film Feeling Sexy (1999). Her work is held by the National Gallery of Australia, and the state galleries of South Australia, Western Australia, Queensland and Victoria.
