Press Release

Mrs. is excited to share a presentation of new works by Damien Davis for Frieze New York Viewing Room 2021. 

Inspired by the career of Mary Eliza Mahoney (May 7, 1845 - January 4, 1926) the first African American to earn a professional nursing license; this presentation of new works by Davis serves simultaneously as a love letter to Black women working in the medical field, and as a celebration of Mahoney’s life.  During Mahoney’s 40 year career, she predominantly worked as a private care nurse, earning an impeccable reputation as she worked all across the U.S. Eastern Seaboard.  She also served as director of the Howard Orphan Asylum for Black children in Weeksville, New York, and was an original member of the predominantly-white Nurses Associated Alumnae of the United States and Canada – known later as the American Nurses Association (ANA). Mahoney went on to co-found the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (NACGN), in 1908.

These new works consist of laser-cut acrylic panels collaged and interconnected using stainless steel hardware, displayed as wall reliefs and as freestanding sculptures.  Damien Davis’s practice explores historical representations of Blackness by seeking to unpack the visual language of various cultures and question how these societies code/decode/recode representations of race through craft, design and digital modes of production. Made up of glyphic shapes, patterns, and images, the works interact in dynamic ways, creating ever-shifting relationships and meanings, while brokering new associations and conversations.

As more attention is given to the great disparities that face women’s health funding, research, delivery, innovation, data collection, and outcomes as they relate specifically to Black women; Davis’s aim with this body of work is to help to amplify a long-overdue conversation, and bring about a new awareness of these issues.

Frieze Viewing Room will run online from May 5 - 14, 2021

Wednesday Preview, May 5, 11am EST – Invitation only
Thursday Preview, May 6, 11am EST – Invitation & Frieze members only
Friday, May 7, 11am EST - Friday, May 14, midnight EST – Free access to all

For more information please contact hello@mrsgallery.com.

Panel Discussion

ENDEAVOUR: Theorizing Black Women’s Agency Across Creative Industries

Coinciding with this presentation by Damien Davis, Mrs. will host a virtual panel discussion titled ENDEAVOUR: Theorizing Black Women’s Agency Across Creative Industries which will examine the victories, challenges and precarities Black women face when entering the "unknown," while also scrutinizing this concept.  This conversation is part of a series of initiatives comprising the tribute to the Vision & Justice Project and Sarah Elizabeth Lewis, Associate Professor at Harvard University, as organized by Frieze New York. The Vision & Justice Project is dedicated to examining art’s central role in understanding the relationship between race and citizenship in the United States. Rooted in the prescient thinking of Frederick Douglass, and his post-Civil War speech Pictures & Progress, the project wrestles with the urgent question of how, in a democracy, the foundational right of representation and the right to be recognized justly, has historically and is still tied to the work of visual representation in the public realm. This work helps us to expand our visual literacy which in turn could alter the lens through which we see the world. 

This discussion will feature April Freely, Director, the Fire Island Artist Residency, Fire Island, NY; Ivy N. Jones, Founder and Operator of Welancora Gallery, New York, NY; Robin Lynch, Associate Professor and Graphic Design Department Chair, Purchase College, SUNY and artist Damien Davis.

Damien Davis holds a BFA in Studio Art and an MA in Visual Arts Administration from New York University. He is the recipient of the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Community Engagement Grant and has been awarded residencies with Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood, WA, Triangle Arts Association, Brooklyn, the Museum of Arts and Design, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art and Storytelling, New York, NY and most recently with Dieu Donné Paper Mill, Brooklyn, NY.  He is also a former fellow and current advisor for the Art & Law Program in New York.  His works have appeared at The Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY. Recent solo exhibitions include Untitled, Miami Beach, FL, Sugar Hill Children's Museum of Art & Storytelling, New York, Weeksville Heritage Center, Brooklyn, Mrs., Maspeth, NY and Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles, CA.  Davis is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Sculpture at Purchase College (SUNY).  The artist lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.