Sunday, August 4
3:00 – 4:00pm | In-person at CMCA
Please join us at the CMCA on Sunday, August 4 at 3:00pm, for an in-person conversation with artists Kenturah Davis and Kent O’Connor. We are pleased to have the opportunity to host a dialogue with artist Kenturah Davis who is the inaugural artist in residency for the Baltimore Museum of Art’s Sherman Family Foundation Residency Program that began early July in Midcoast, ME. The two will present not only past and present works, but discuss studio practices, and highlight the current project developments while in residency. Light refreshments to follow in the lobby.
About the artists
Kenturah Davis (b. 1980) lives and works between Los Angeles and Accra, Ghana. The artist earned her BA from Occidental College and MFA from Yale University School of Art.
Solo exhibitions include clouds, Stephen Friedman, London, UK (2024); apropos of air, Matthew Brown, Los Angeles (2021); (a)Float, (a)Fall, (a)Dance, (a)Death, Jeffrey Deitch, New York (2021); Everything That Cannot Be Known, Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) Museum of Art (2020); Kenturah Davis + Desmond Lewis, Crosstown Arts in coordination with Seed Space, Memphis (2019); Blur in the Interest of Precision, Matthew Brown, Los Angeles (2019); Narratives and Meditations, Papillion, Los Angeles (2014); sonder, Papillion, Los sAngeles (2013); euphemisms, Curve Line Space Gallery, Los Angeles (2011).
Recent institutional exhibitions include Dark Illumination, Oxy Arts (2023); California Biennial 2022, organized by Elizabeth Armstrong and Essence Harden, Orange County Museum of Art, Costa Mesa (2022); Our House: Selections from MOCA’s Collection, organized by Bennett Simpson and Mia Locks, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2022); Currents and Constellations, curated by Kee Jo Lee, Cleveland Museum of Art (2022); The Phoenix Project: Continuing the Dialogue from 1992, Korean Cultural Center, Los Angeles (2022); Black American Portraits, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) (2022); Plumb Line: Charles White and the Contemporary, curated by Essence Harden and Leigh Raiford, California African American Museum (CAAM), Los Angeles (2019); and Afrocosmologies: American Reflections, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford (2019).
Kent O’Connor (b. 1987) lives and works in Los Angeles. The artist earned his BFA from Maryland Institute of College of Art and his MFA from Yale University School of Art.
Solo exhibitions include Frieze Los Angeles, Matthew Brown, Los Angeles (2024); Everything All At Once, Mendes Wood DM, New York (2023); Close the Door Behind You, Matthew Brown, Los Angeles (2021), New Paintings, Diane Rosenstein, Los Angeles (2018); Flower Paintings, The Study, New Haven, CT (2017).
Recent group exhibitions include Arcadia and Elsewhere, James Cohan, New York (2024); Papertrail, Matthew Brown, Los Angeles (2023); Uncanny Interiors, Nicola Vassel, New York (2022); Art Basel Miami Beach, Josh Lilley, Miami (2022); Art Basel Miami Beach, Mendes Wood DM, Miami (2022); Their Private Worlds Contained the Memory of a Painting that has Shapes as Reassuring as the Uncanny Footage of a Sonogram, curated by Sedrick Chisom, Matthew Brown, Los Angeles (2022); The Scenic Route, 1969 Gallery, New York (2021); It Seems So Long Ago, Matthew Brown, Los Angeles (2020); Open Air, Tong Art Advisory, East Hampton, NY (2020); Seven Year Itch, Diane Rosenstein, Los Angeles (2019); Way Out Now, Diane Rosenstein, Los Angeles (2018); Heads/Tails, Next to Nothing, New York (2018); and Oily Doily, BBQ LA, Los Angeles (2016).
In 2017, O’Connor was awarded the Dumfries House Fellowship at the Royal Drawing School in Ayrshire, Scotland.
About the residency
The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) forms the Sherman Family Foundation Residency. The program is established through a generous financial gift from the Sherman Family Foundation and in collaboration with philanthropists Betsy Sherman and her son Michael Sherman, who currently sits on the BMA’s Board of Trustees. The Sherman Family Foundation Residency will, each summer, provide one artist with studio space and financial support to complete ongoing projects, create new work, or simply explore and consider ideas within their practice. As part of the residency, the participating artist will also have the opportunity to connect with BMA leadership for professional development and to discuss an acquisition of their work.
Learn more about the Sherman Family Foundation Residency here.
Header image: Kenturah Davis, volume III (marjani + marcella), 2024. Carbon pencil rubbing and debossed text on igarashi kozo paper with ebony and brass vessels in walnut frame. drawing size: 38 x 59 frame size: 45 5/8 x 60 3/4 x 4.