ARTIST STATEMENT
CURRICULUM VITAE
Davina Shefet
25/02/1988
Nationality Danish, born and still living in France (Paris)
Trilingual French, English, Danish
+33 (0)6 62 12 23 44
EDUCATION
2014: Bachelor - École de Communication Visuelle / School of Visual Communication, with options in illustration and a discipline named «Acte IV» which focused on realizing artistic projects and Contemporary Art Culture - Paris
2006: French Baccalauréat with a special in Literature and Drama obtained with Honors - Lycée Bristol, Cannes
EXHIBITIONS AND COMMISSIONS
November 2019-January 2020: Solo exhibition «Opium Dreams» at the Leslie Curran Gallery, Florida, US (under Leslie Curran representation in the state of Florida until 2021)
March-April 2018: Solo exhibition of the Series «The Opium Dream» Espace Rue Bernard Palissy, Saint-Germain-des-Prés - Paris
2017: Commission installation and performance adapted from the video project I made in 2015 «Amour et liberté» for Agency CC and inauguration of Hotel Sir Nikolaï - Hamburg, Germany
2015: Commission of silk paintings and sculptures for «Arts for Patròn» event organized by Le Fruit Studio agency for Patròn Tequila - Atelier Basfroi, Paris
2013: Group exhibition «Nomad Utopia» Caroussel du Louvre, Tranoï - Paris
DISTINCTIONS
2019: Featured in House & Garden UK, Bo Bedre "Best Places to buy Art Prints", Elle Denmark
2018: Featured in Saatchi Art Collection «Meet The New Figurative Painters»
Featured in Bo Bedre, article referencing the best places to buy art prints online
2016: Finalist at «Entrepreneurs des Métiers d’Art» organized by the Institut des Métiers d’Arts and Ernest and Young for the fashion brand project
2014: Finalist at Contest «Meilleurs Dessinateurs» Best Drawers held by newspaper Libération with imposed theme: "Nocturnal portraits" - Series of illustrations, mixed media
OTHER ART RELATED AND CREATIVE EXPERIENCES
Since 2018: Managing of online gallery where I sell my art , content creation, social and everything related to my Art business
2015 - 2018: Founder and Art Director of fashion brand Davina’s Bazaar which focused on textile design and turning my silk paintings into kimonos - Paris
2017: Scriptwriting of an original series called «Dreams and sticks», an autobiographical musical drama. The writing of this project lead me to intern at the Art Departement at Zentropa during the filming of Lars Von Trier movie: «The House that Jack Built» - Copenhagen, Denmark
2014: Internship at Christian Lacroix, Studio departement, graphic design - Paris
Since forever: Songwriting, singing, producing - Pop, Soul, Jazz, Electro
Through the different mediums that I like to work with, primarily painting, I try to capture the complexity and spontaneity of inner conflict and the relief that comes from Art or Beauty.
My paintings are testimonies and revealers of my subconscious but foremost, they are a place in which I create friends, find joy and support, reminisce about the past, escape to the future. I fix emotions in time so that I can understand them on a different level. I don't judge them, I look at them like memories.
I paint with a gesture that is representative of my emotion, often nervous, fast and full of adrenaline. For that reason, I use acrylic and oil pastels as I wish to paint fast to capture the present moment and be able to build on it. I like to disturb calmly set scenes with the rush of my intuition which I find to be an honest expression of who I am. Often the scenes in question will show themselves with time, I don't have a fixed idea of a character or narrative, the paintings build themselves through a process of esthetic research until an overall mood or an expression in the character surprises me, intrigues me. I then center the piece around that expression.
My relationship to colour, composition, and perspective is greatly inspired by Matisse, Odilon Redon, Chagall or contemporary painters such as Hernan Bas, Adrian Ghenie, and David Hockney.