Diedrick Bracken and Kenturah Davis on Matthew Brown Los Angeles Podcast

In this debut episode of the Matthew Brown Los Angeles Podcast, artist Kenturah Davis conducts an interview with artist Diedrick Brackens in a conversation that spans the politics of pandemics, the history and process of Brackens' tapestry weavings, and Brackens' parallel, though lesser-known, practice of basket weaving.

Using text as a point of departure, Kenturah Davis 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, photographs and performances. Davis recently opened her first solo institutional exhibition, Everything That Cannot Be Known at the Savannah College of Art and Design Museum (2020). Other solo and two-person exhibitions include Blur in the Interest of Precision, Matthew Brown Los Angeles (2019); a two-person exhibition with Desmond Lewis at Crosstown Arts, Memphis, TN in coordination with the traveling venue, Seed Space (2019); as well as Narratives and Meditations (2014) and sonder (2013) at Papillion, Los Angeles. Davis lives and works between Los Angeles, CA and Accra, Ghana.

Diedrick Brackens is best known for his woven tapestries that explore allegory and narrative through the artist’s autobiography, broader themes of African American and queer identity, as well as American history. Recent solo exhibitions include blessed are the mosquitoes, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York (2020); If You Have Ghosts, Alabama Contemporary Art Center, Mobile, AL (2020); Allegiance, University Art Gallery, The University of the South, Sewanee, TN (2019); Diedrick Brackens: darling divined, The New Museum, New York (2019); and unholy ghosts, Various Small Fires, Los Angeles (2019). Brackens lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.

You Are An Artist

The Art Assignment is now a book! New assignments, along with a selection gathered during the course of making the series, is now available.

You Are an Artist brings together more than 50 assignments gathered from some of the most innovative creators working today, including Kenturah Davis, Sonya Clark, Michelle Grabner, The Guerrilla Girls, Fritz Haeg, Pablo Helguera, Nina Katchadourian, Toyin Ojih Odutola, J. Morgan Puett, Dread Scott, Alec Soth, Gillian Wearing, and many others.

You’ll learn about why these artists are offering each assignment, what works from art history inform the activity, and see some of the outstanding responses that have been made to the assignments. It also offers a plethora of new tips and cheats and variations.

The Occidental

Kenturah is featured in the winter issue of Occidental College’s magazine. As a proud alumna and professor in the Art History and Visual Art Department, Davis reflects on her Oxy days as a student and athlete (volleyball!).

Matthew Brown Los Angeles announces representation

Matthew Brown Los Angeles announces the representation of their artists, including Kenturah Davis. The gallery opened in 2019 with her show, “Blur In the Interest of Precision.

SEDRICK CHISOM

KENTURAH DAVIS

LUIS FLORES

SASHA GORDON

DAN HERSCHLEIN

TAJH RUST

VINCENT VALDEZ

rihannazine, i-D Special Edition

Rihanna, photographed by Mario Sorrenti

Kenturah, photographed by Mario Sorrenti

“For me, this very special issue of i-D represents change and culture. It is dedicated to some of the people who are progressively reshaping the communities across fashion, music, art and activism - creating a more inclusive and diverse future.”

— Rihanna

i-D Magazine kicks off the new decade and 40th anniversary year with Rihanna for the special, limited edition issue, “rihannazine”. The visually-driven project is a celebration of incredible people, handpicked by Ri and i-D for an inspirational and progressive impact across culture, art, fashion and activism.

Kenturah is featured in this issue, including an interview with Rihanna and her 2020 manifesto.

Explore the world of 'Rihannazine' digitally here, or order your limited edition print copy (no. 01, 2020) here.

Photography by Mario Sorrenti

Editor-in-Chief and styling by Alastair McKimm

Casting Director: Samuel Ellis

Artsy Feature: These Emerging Black Artists Are the Future of Figurative Painting

Kenturah Davis is named in this list of Black artists, written by Isis Davis-Marks, which also includes Jerrell Gibbs, Joy Labinjo, Kassou Seydou, Arcmanoro Niles, Gerald Lovell, Somaya Critchlow, Wangari Mathenge, Tajh Rust and Kudzanai-Violet Hwami.

https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-emerging-black-artists-future-figurative-painting

Headlands Artist in Residence

This spring Kenturah will be participating in the Headlands Artist in Residence, with local, national, and international artists from 10 states and 16 countries.

Headlands Center for the Arts is a multidisciplinary, international arts center dedicated to supporting artists; the creative process; and the development of new, innovative ideas and artwork.

Where they are is as important as what they do. The campus comprises a cluster of artist-rehabilitated military buildings, just north of the Golden Gate Bridge at historic Fort Barry in the Marin Headlands, a part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

Headlands artists programs support artists of all disciplines—from visual artists to performers, musicians, writers, and videographers—and provide opportunities for independent and collaborative creative work. 

http://www.headlands.org/artist/kenturah-davis/

Solo Show at SCAD Museum of Art

Everything That Cannot Be Known

February 6 - December 15, 2020

Reception February 18, 2020

SCAD Museum of Art, 601 Turner Blvd, Savannah, GA 31401

Based across Los Angeles, California; New Haven, Connecticut; and Accra, Ghana, Kenturah Davis works in drawing, painting, sculpture, and performance. Davis is interested in language and its relationship to the formation of identity and, in a broader sense, a world vision. Her multilayered process includes different forms of translation: from text to image and reality to representation. Her figures often intersect with words or are appear in movement. Exploring the potential of transmutable materials like embossing paper or paper transformed into thread, she interrogates the human essence.

Davis’ exhibition Everything That Cannot Be Known in the Walter O. Evans Center for African American Art presents a large array of recent works that represent the artist’s exhaustive research on penmanship and mark-making in relationship to the representation of black bodies. Establishing a direct relationship with the exhibition’s title, figures appear blurred or doubled as a passing vision, emphasizing the impossibility of portraying the complexities of one subject and the intangibility of personal and collective identities. In the exhibition, more than 20 works, all completed between 2017 and the present, offer a generous survey of the artist’s prolific practice.  

Davis was commissioned by LA Metro to create large-scale, site-specific work that will be permanently installed on the new Crenshaw/LAX rail line opening in 2020. Her work has been included in institutional exhibitions in Africa, Asia, Australia, and Europe. Davis earned her B.A. from Occidental College, Los Angeles, and her M.F.A. from Yale School of Art. She is an inaugural artist fellow at NXTHVN in New Haven.

This exhibition is presented as part of SCAD deFINE ART 2020, the university’s annual program of exhibitions, lectures, and performances held Feb. 18–20 at locations in Atlanta and Savannah, Georgia.

Everything That Cannot Be Known is curated by Humberto Moro, adjunct curator for SCAD exhibitions.

Artist Talk at Art + Practice

On December 12th, Kenturah Davis visited Art + Practice for an artist talk . Through a multidisciplinary practice that includes drawings, textiles, sculpture and performances, Davis’ work uses text as a point of departure, exploring the fundamental role that language has in shaping human understanding. At A+P, Davis discussed how her recent work has been influenced by thinking about ways of “seeing in the dark.” manifesting in text based drawings that are intentionally blurry and objects whose qualities are veiled in mystery to highlight an awareness of things at the edge of our perception.

This program is organized on the occasion of A+P’s exhibitions Stephen Towns: Rumination and a Reckoning and Ramsess: The Gathering.

Feature in Angeleno Magazine

Kenturah Davis is featured in Patrons and Players: Four Philanthropic Pairs Making it Happen in LA.

Written by Kelly Badal and Laura Eckstein Jones, Kenturah sits down for an interview with Roc Nation CEO and Co-founder, Jay Brown.

https://mlangeleno.com/four-philanthropic-pairs-making-it-happen-in-los-angeles