(Swedish, b. 1957)
Silvia Davis has been working professionally since receiving her BFA and MFA from the University of Utah. She is well known for her highly original wood and bronze sculptures of animals and complex still lifes which can be found in major collections nationally. Salt Lake City commissioned her to create public sculpture on 4 occasions. She has been the recipient of the prestigious North American Sculpture Award. She has created sculpture for the Sundance institute, the Houston Grand Opera, the Utah Opera, the Utah Shakespearean Festival, Pioneer theatre company, the Showtime channel and the Disney channel. In 2020 she received the Utah Governors Mansion foundation award in the visual arts for sculpture.
Silvia has been aware of her desire to be an artist since childhood in Cupertino California. From a very young age she spontaneously searched for materials to draw, create and build things. Paper, pencil, mud, cardboard, pine cones, palm fronds and tinker toys were like gold to her. When she earned a bit of money she would go to the dime store to buy a model and spend the day sitting under a tree putting it together. The essence of these impulses are still what motivates her today.
For full resume, view PDF below
Education
1993 M.F.A. Sculpture University of Utah
1980 B.F.A. Sculpture University of Utah
1978 Snowbird Summer Arts Institute
Exhibitions
2014 Artist’s of Helper - Four Person Show, Coda Gallery, Palm Desert, California
2013 Annual Spring Salon, Springville Museum of Art, Springville, Utah
2012 Silvia Davis and Wendy Chidester -Two person Show, Coda Gallery, Palm Desert, California
2008 “Paul and Silvia Davis” - Two Person Show, Coda Gallery, Palm Desert, California
2007 Annual Spring Salon, Springville Museum of Art, Springville, Utah
Awards
1983 North American Sculpture Award, Foothills Art Center, Golden, Colorado
Work Experience
2008 Sculptor for “A Light in the Piazza” Pioneer Theatre Company, Salt Lake City, Utah
2005 Sculptor for “Peter Pan”, Pioneer Theatre Company, Salt Lake City, Utah
2004 Sculptor for Showtime Channel, “The Maldonado Miracle”
2004 Sculptor for Disney Channel, “Don’t Look Under the Bed”
2003 Present Private Workshops sculpting the Human Head in clay
Commission Work
1994 Wood Sculpture of St. Elizabeth for St. Elizabeth Catholic Church, Richfield, Utah
1994 Percent for Art, Life size Firefighter carved in mahogany for Fire Station, Salt Lake City, Utah
1992 Liturgical work St. Elizabeth Catholic Church, Richfield, Utah. Sculptures of the Stations of the Cross
1992 Collaborative Designer and Sculptor for Public Block 57 Project, Salt Lake City, Utah. Works in Bronze and Cast Iron
1992 Percent for Arts Project, Public Sculpture for Fairmont and Warm Springs Parks, Salt Lake City, Utah. Bronze
Artist's Statement
I think that the act of re-creating a form, by hand, in a different, transformative material enables us to experience that object again … as if for the first time. We see its true form as interpreted by the artist and not just its utilitarian identity.
I search for clear ways to reduce and reassemble the chaos and complexity of my subjects. Because this process, the back and forth of creation and destruction, is actually visible in the sculpture, we are able to observe the artist’s mind at work, and share the visual consciousness of another.
It’s easy to see that the work of Silvia Davis is complex in many ways. When looking at one of her wooden cats, for example, I find myself trying to unravel the process of its creation. Each sculpture has a kind of geological memory of its making which is visible in the final form. The almost genetic shuffling and reshuffling of the many different shapes, colors and textures of the carved blocks of wood is all there for us to see but is none the less very difficult to grasp in terms of its making.
When looking at one of her cats a thought comes to me that may be similar to what Darwin may have thought when looking at a real cat, which is: “How did this miracle come to be”? On a deeper level her work is a metaphor for those moments of awe, which we all feel from time to time in the face of nature.
Complexity also exists in the expressive qualities of her work. Her animals are independent, sentient beings. They project an inner life, intelligence and dignity. They are calm with a strong balanced center. Yet they are not without mystery. They achieve a full measure of the depth of her identification with and feelings for her subjects.
Paul Davis
Emeritus Professor of Art
University of Utah
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