Ian Davenport was born in Sidcup, and studied art at the Northwich College of Art and Design in Cheshire before going to Goldsmiths College, from which he graduated in 1988. Some of his classmates included Damien Hirst, Michael Landy, Gary Hume and Sarah Lucas. In the same year, he exhibited in the Damien Hirst-curated Freeze exhibition which first brought together many of the later-to-be Young British Artists. Davenport’s first solo show was in 1990 and in the same year he was included in the British Art Show. In 1991, he was nominated for the annual Turner Prize.

For the Days Like These exhibition at Tate Britain in 2003, Davenport made a thirteen-metre-high mural by dripping lines of differently coloured paint down the wall from a syringe. In September 2006 he unveiled his largest public commission to date on Southwark Bridge, entitled Poured Lines: Southwark. He painted the West End Wall of the University of Oxford Department of Biochemistry.

The first monograph dedicated to Davenport was published in 2014, launched with a show, “Colourfall” at Waddington Custot Galleries.