Davina Semo is an American artist (b. 1981, Washington DC) working in sculpture. She completed her MFA at the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...

in 2006 and a BA in Visual Arts from

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

in 2003.

Life and work

Semo is best known for sculpture that embraces industrial construction materials like glass, concrete, and chain. She has exhibited solo shows of her work at galleries Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco, Marlborough Gallery, New York, and Ribordy Thetaz, Geneva, among others. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at the

San Francisco Arts Commission The San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC) is the City agency that champions the arts as essential to daily life by investing in a vibrant arts community, enlivening the urban environment and shaping innovative cultural policy in San Francisco, Cali ...

Contemporary Jewish Museum The Contemporary Jewish Museum (CJM) is a non-collecting museum at 736 Mission Street at Yerba Buena Lane in the South of Market (SoMa) neighborhood of San Francisco, California. The museum, which was founded in 1984, is located in the historic ...

(San Francisco), the Sculpture Center (New York), and 2011 Bridgehampton Biennial, curated by Bob Nickas. In 2019, Semo had sculptural work exhibited alongside the painter

Deborah Remington Deborah Remington (June 25, 1930 – April 21, 2010) was an American abstract painter. Her most notable work is characterized as Hard-edge painting abstraction. She became a part of the San Francisco Bay Area's Beat scene in the 1950s. In 1965, ...

at Parts & Labor Beacon, NY.

Public art

In 2014, Semo installed a concrete-bunker-like building across from

Barnard College Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia ...

, at Broadway and 117th Street. Titled “Everything is Permitted,” the structure was a gray concrete box with mitered corners, seven-feet tall and six-feet square and was installed as part of ''Broadway Morey Boogie'', an exhibition of 10 public sculptures by many artists installed along Broadway between Columbus Circle and 166th Street.

Limited edition

RITE Editions in San Francisco created, in collaboration with the artist, a limited edition letter opener made of Damascus Steel.

Fashion

The designer Rachel Comey presented her RTW Fall 2019 show in Davina Semo's solo exhibition at Marlborough Gallery. The designer Hedi Slimane installed a double X chain piece in the Celine store in Paris.

Quote

“I want the interaction with my work to be as strong as the experience of walking down the street,” she added, “to be affected by the weight, strength, visual layering, power, and associations of the environments we are born into, and make our lives in.”

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Semo, Davina 1981 births Living people American women sculptors University of California, San Diego alumni Brown University alumni 21st-century American women artists