Davis is best known for his carvings of historical figures such as a set of mahogany busts of all the presidents (through George H. W. Bush) and similar portrait heads of the Rev.
He typically created his sculptures, busts, canes and portraits freehand, without drawings, using a hatchet or band saw to start a piece and then finishing it with a chisel or knife.
He typically worked without the aid of preliminary drawings, using hatchets and band saws to rough out the form before picking up a chisel or knife.
Davis almost never made preliminary drawings or models but reduced the mass with a hatchet or a bandsaw before refining the form with a chisel and knives.
His "Makonde", a version of the "Tree of Life" found in sculpture from Tanzania and Mozambique, includes a Janus-like divinity out of Yoruba cosmology.
He also relied on popular representations of Africans, basing one series of sculptures on illustrations of warrior kings from a 1970s Anheuser-Busch promotional calendar.
His most intricate works are the decorative objects he referred to as "twinklets": tiered boxes that look like wedding cakes, adorned with beads and crystals.