“If writing is thinking and discovery and selection and order and meaning, it is also awe and reverence and mystery and magic.”

— Toni Morrison, "The Site of Memory"

Bio

Kenturah Davis is an artist working between Los Angeles and Accra (Ghana). Her work oscillates between various facets of portraiture and design. Using text as a point of departure, she explores the fundamental role that language has in shaping how we understand ourselves and the world around us. This manifests in a variety of forms including drawings, textiles, sculpture and performances. Her work has been included in institutional exhibitions in Africa, Asia, Australia and Europe. Davis earned her BA from Occidental College and MFA Yale University School of Art. Davis was commissioned by LA Metro to create large-scale, site-specific works permanently installed on the new Crenshaw/LAX rail line. Davis was an inaugural artist fellow at NXTHVN in New Haven, CT.

Curriculum Vitae

EDUCATION:

Yale School of Art (New Haven, CT), MFA in Painting, Toby Devan Lewis Fellowship Prize

Occidental College (Los Angeles, CA), B.A. in Art History and Visual Arts, Cum Laude

SOLO EXHIBITIONS:

Dark Illumination - Oxy Arts (Los Angeles, CA) 2023

apropos of air - Matthew Brown (Los Angeles, CA) 2021

(A)Float, (A)Fall, (A)Dance, (A)Death - Jeffrey Deitch (NYC, NY) 2021

Everything that Cannot Be Known - SCAD Museum of Art (Savannah, GA) 2020.

Blur in the Interest of Precision - Matthew Brown Los Angeles (Los Angeles, CA) 2019.

Narratives and Meditations - Papillion (Los Angeles, CA) 2014.

sonder - Papillion (Los Angeles, CA) 2013.

euphemisms - Curve Line Space Gallery (Los Angeles, CA) 2011.

SELECT GROUP EXHIBITIONS:

In and Out of Time - Gallery 1957 (Accra, Ghana) 2023

Accra! The Rise of a Global Art Community - Columbus Museum of Art (Columbus, OH) 2023

Clay Pop Los Angeles - Jeffrey Deitch Gallery (Los Angeles, CA) 2023

Portrait of A Nation: 2022 Honorees - Smithsonian Institution (Washington DC) 2022

California Biennial 2022 - Orange County Museum of Art (Costa Mesa, CA) 2022

From Near and Far - Stephen Friedman (London, UK) 2022

The Artist as a Poet: Selections from PAMM’s Collection - Perez Art Museum Miami (Miami, FL) 2021

Shattered Glass - Jeffrey Deitch Gallery (Miami, FL) 2021

Black American Portraits - Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles, CA) 2021

PARABLE 003 - Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (Los Angeles, CA) 2021

Social Works - Gagosian Gallery (NYC, NY) 2021

Otherwise/Revival - Bridge Projects (Los Angeles, CA) 2021

Lines of Thought: Kenturah Davis, Mary Kelly and Agnes Martin - Pippy Houldsworth Gallery (London, England) 2020

Parallels and Peripheries - curated by Larry Ossei-Mensah at Galleria Anna Marra (Rome, Italy) 2020

Language Games - Fullerton College (Fullerton, CA) 2020

Punch, Curated by Nina Chanel Abney - Jeffrey Deitch Gallery (Los Angeles, CA) 2019

Plumb Line: Charles White and the Contemporary - California African American Museum (Los Angeles, CA) 2019

As Long as We’re Flying… - Luce Gallery (Turin, ITALY) 2019

Kenturah Davis + Desmond Lewis - Crosstown Arts, Presented by Seed Space and Delta Axis (Memphis, TN) 2019

Fashioning the Black Body - Projects + Gallery (St. Louis, MO) 2019

Portraits - Foxy Productions (NYC, NY) 2019

Linked in Tradition, Inspiring in Vision: A Selection of Works by African American Women Artists - Robert and Frances Museum of Art (San Bernadino, CA) 2017

Black Joy - Yale University. (New Haven, CT) 2016

Southland - Charlie James Gallery. (Los Angeles, CA) 2016.

We Must Risk Delight – Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia, Venice Biennale (Venice, ITALY) 2015.

African Electronics - CHALÉ WOTE Street Art Festival (Accra, GHANA) 2015.

The Silence of Ordinary Things – The Mistake Room. (Los Angeles, CA) 2015.

I Just Want the Paper - The Mine Factory. (Pittsburgh, PA) 2014.

i:23 - The Yokohama Triennial. (Yokohama, JAPAN) 2014

An American Water Margin - Ucity Museum at Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, (Guangzhou, CHINA) 2014

Interface: Art/Fashion/Anti-Fashion - Cal State Long Beach (Long Beach, CA) 2013.

Mas Attack - Torrance Art Museum (Torrance, CA) 2013.

Mis-Design - Ian Potter Museum, University of Melbourne (Melbourne, AUSTRALIA) 2011.

panelshop/Design Loves Art - Pacific Design Center (Los Angeles, CA) 2011.

Expanding the Matrix - Occidental College's Weingart Gallery (Los Angeles, CA) 2010.

smockshop Berlin - Sprüth Magers Gallery (Berlin, GERMANY) 2009.

smockshop High Desert Test Sites CB08 - California Biennial (Joshua Tree, CA) 2008.

COLLECTIONS:

Blanton Museum of Art

Brooklyn Museum

Bunker (Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection)

CCS Hessel Museum of Art

Columbus Museum of Art

Cornell Fine Arts Museum, Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art, Rollins College

Guggenheim Museum

Haas Art Library

Hammer Museum

Harvard Art Museums

Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston

Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami

Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Museum of Modern Art, New York

Occidental College

Perez Art Museum

Rubell Family Collection

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian

Studio Museum

University of Chicago Booth School of Business

Walker Art Center

Yale University

AWARDS/RESIDENCIES:

Wanlass Artist in Residence - Occidental College (Los Angeles) 2022

Chateau de Courances Residency (Courances, France) 2022

Dorcester Experimental Design Lab - Prada (Chicago/Milan), 2022

Headlands Center for the Arts (Sausalito, CA) 2021

Palm Heights Residency (Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands) 2021

Surfs Point Artist-in-Residence (Surfs Point, ME) 2021

Fountainhead Residency (Miami, FL) 2020

NXTHVN Artist Fellow (New Haven, CT) 2019

Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition Semi-finalist - National Portrait Gallery (Washington, DC) 2019

Toby Devan Lewis Fellowship Awardee - Yale School of Art (New Haven, CT) 2018

Osei-Duro Artist-in-Residence (Accra, Ghana) 2018

DAMLI Fellow - Cleveland Museum of Art (2018)

COMMISSIONS/SPECIAL PROJECTS:

“Sonder” – Crenshaw/LAX project, LA METRO. (Los Angeles, CA) 2020: One of fourteen selected artists to create site-specific, integrated artworks for the new Crenshaw/LAX Metro Line.

"Otelia Cromwell for Yale" - Yale University (New Haven, CT) 2018: Commissioned portrait of Yale's first Black woman PhD graduate (class of 1926).“Four Women” - Alliance Française Accra Mural series (Accra, Ghana) 2014

“Métamorphose” - L’Exposition AD Interieurs (Paris, France) 2013

Andrea Zittel’s Smockshop - A-Z West (Los Angeles/Joshua Tree, CA) 2007-2009

“Ray Charles America” - A&E Documentary 2008