Ian Davenport was born in Sidcup, Kent in 1966. He studied at Goldsmiths' College of Art in London, graduating in 1988. In that year, he participated in Freeze, the exhibition curated by Damien Hirst.

His first solo exhibition was held at Waddington Galleries in 1990, and in the same year his work was also seen in The British Art Show, which toured to Leeds City Art Gallery and the Hayward Gallery, London. He was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1991.

Davenport has had solo exhibitions at Dundee Contemporary Arts (1999), Tate Liverpool (2000), and Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (2004), and has recently shown extensively in Europe and abroad including Galerie Hopkins, Paris; Galerie Slewe, Amsterdam; Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York; Hakgojae Gallery, Seoul, Korea. His work can be seen in major collections worldwide, including the Arts Council Collection, London; Borusan Art Gallery, Istanbul; The British Council; Daimler Chrysler Collection, Stuttgart; Dallas Museum of Art, Texas; Tate, London and the Weltkunst Collection, Zurich.

In 1997, he was commissioned to create a site-specific installation for Banque Paribas in London.
In 2003, Davenport produced a wall painting for the Tate Triennial and was commissioned by the Contemporary Art Society in 2004 to make a wall painting for the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Warwick University. Davenport was also commissioned by Southwark Council and Land Securities to produce Poured Lines: Southwark Street, a 48 metre long painting as part of the regeneration of Bankside which was completed in 2006.