Kenturah Davis (b. 1980, Los Angeles) lives and works between Los Angeles, New Haven, and Accra. The artist earned her BA from Occidental College and MFA from Yale University School of Art.

Solo exhibitions include Clouds, Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, UK (2024); Dark Illumination, Oxy Arts, Los Angeles (2023); Spotlight: Kenturah Davis, The FLAG Art Foundation, New York , NY (2023); 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, Savannah, GA (2020); Kenturah Davis + Desmond Lewis, Crosstown Arts in coordination with Seed Space, Memphis, TN (2019); Blur in the Interest of Precision, Matthew Brown, Los Angeles (2019); Narratives and Meditations, Papillion, Los Angeles (2014); sonder, Papillion, Los Angeles (2013); euphemisms, Curve Line Space Gallery, Los Angeles (2011).

Recent institutional exhibitions include Accra! The Rise of a Global Art Community, Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH (2023); Full Figure, Cantor Arts Center, Stanford, CA (2023); PRESENT ’23: Building the Scantland Collection of the Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH (2023); Together in Time: Selections from the Hammer Contemporary Collection, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2023); Portrait of a Nation: 2022 Honorees, organized by the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian, Washington D.C. (2022); California Biennial 2022, organized by Elizabeth Armstrong and Essence Harden, Orange County Museum of Art, Costa Mesa, CA (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, OH (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, CT (2019).

Other notable institutional exhibitions include: Must Risk Delight, organized in collaboration with the 56th Venice Biennale (2015); 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); We Must Risk Delight, the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia, Venice Biennale (2015); The Silence of Ordinary Things, The Mistake Room, Los Angeles (2015); i:23: The Yokohama Triennial, Yokohama, Japan (2014); An American Water Margin, Ucity Museum, Guangzhou, China (2014); Mass Attack, Torrance Art Museum, CA (2013); and Mis-Design, Ian Potter Museum, Melbourne, Australia (2011).

The Los Angeles Metro Rail commissioned a large-scale, site-specific work by Davis that is now permanently installed on the new Crenshaw/LAX, K Line station. Other public projects include Four Women, a commissioned mural by Alliance Francaise to commemorate International Women’s Day, in Accra, and Metamorphose, comprised of five portraits commissioned by architect Elliott Barnes, featured in Barnes’ installation at the Lâ Exposition AD Interieurs, Paris, France.

The artist was an inaugural artist fellow at NXTHVN in New Haven, founded by Titus Kaphar and Jonathan Brand and a DAMLI fellow at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Davis is the current Wanlass Artist in Residence at Occidental College, Los Angeles, and an inaugural cohort for Dorchester Industries Experimental Design Lab, by Theaster Gates and Prada.

Her work is included in the collections of Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas; Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY; Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection, The Bunker ArtSpace, Palm Beach, FL; CCS Hessel Museum of Art, Hudson, NY; Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH; Cornell Fine Arts Museum at Rollins College, Ithaca, NYo; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, Ca; Harvard Art Museums, Boston, MA; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Perez Art Museum, Miami, FL; Rubell Museum, Miami, FL; Studio Museum, Harlem, NY; The University of Chicago Booth School of Business; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Yale University, New Haven, CT.