I’m a storyteller,’ says the American artist Karon Davis. ‘I grew up in a family of showpeople, in sweaty rehearsal halls and in the wings, watching my father perform. It’s an element that is definitely embedded in my work, and it is coming through now that I’m older. This act of performing and entertaining and razzle-dazzle – it was all around me.’

Born in Reno, Nevada, to Tony award-winning performer Ben Vereen and ballerina Nancy Bruner, Davis studied film, theatre and dance before turning to art. Her distinctive practice, of creating plaster casts of family, friends and occasionally herself, is rooted in this background of storytelling and performance. Frozen in action, Davis’ sculptures ask viewers to fill in the gaps from the fragments of narrative she presents, in a smart uniting of the theatrical and artistic strands that run through her DNA.

‘Growing up, I got to run around casinos in my patent leather shoes and see so many interesting performers,’ she says. ‘I think that bleeds into my work because when I make the sculptures now, I approach them as an actor. My studying of theatre makes me ask, who is this character? What are they doing? Where are they going? So I don’t look at them as bodies. I look at them as people.’

After graduating from film school, Davis decided to leave the industry – ‘I got ripped off a lot in Hollywood,’ she says – and retreated into the studio with the support of her late husband, the painter Noah Davis. She began to consider the role of the body from her perspective as a trained dancer, imagining how it would be to preserve it, freezing it in time and returning to it later; ideas she considered alongside her long-running fascination with ancient Egypt and the intricate wrappings of mummies.

For a dancer, the body is a complex tool, a subject Davis explored in her 2023 show ‘Beauty Must Suffer’ at New York’s Salon 94. She captured Black ballet dancers moving through the stages of their performance, their figures coated in white plaster, highlighting the lack of Black representation in the industry. The punishing consequences of the discipline on the contorted bodies is clear. ‘Let’s talk about the violence dancers do against their own bodies,’ says Davis. ‘Pushing it past its limits, under the guise of the illusion of grace and beauty, to entertain others. There’s an idea of the body being this vessel of joy for others, but you are also your own person – dancers live to dance. We live to perform, and it is a joy. But you have to sacrifice so much. In the exhibition, I challenged myself to make a ballet without movement. How can I tell a story without anybody moving? How can we get people’s imaginations to take the next steps?’

Davis hopes her work will contribute to a more comprehensive picture than the one she is currently seeing. ‘Wishful Thinking’, her upcoming show at Salon 94, will focus on the absence of the Black figure in the art history canon. ‘I want to make work that I feel is missing in the world, and in the museums,’ she says. ‘I don’t see myself in there, so I’m creating sculptures that I selfishly want to see when I walk into a museum. In the ballet work, we all love Degas. Where is Misty [Copeland]? Where is Carmen de Lavallade? Where are my heroes? Now I’m venturing into this world with the nude sculptures because I think we need some whimsy and magic and mythology – it’s time to go there.’

‘Not My Circus’, opening at Seattle Art Museum next month, is a meditation on what it means to perform, through the lens of the circus. A complex metaphor, it comprises a disturbing, seductive blend of power, pleasure and control. ‘Because of my theatrical background, I love the circus. I wanted to create a world that was chaotic, but also mesmerising and alluring; led by the ringmaster, this powerful man in the middle of it all who is controlling it.’ Her ringmaster, one hand a gaslight, the other holding a whip, is a manipulative source of chaos. We are invited to read our own interpretation into his character, deciding who he is for us.

In a gilded cage, one of the largest pieces Davis has made so far, reclines a figure, half woman, half lion. On second glance, however, we see the bars of the cage are bent. She can leave at any time, a fact obvious to everyone – except her. ‘I think that a lot of people have felt that, where they’re in a relationship or situation that is not good for them. They’ve been gaslit so much that, although they are a courageous lion, they have become this cowardly lion. But they need to tap into the lion within so they can go through those bars. They can leave. They have a choice.’

We can see ourselves in the figures that populate Davis’ circus. Through the magic and the artifice, the artist has a sharp eye for illuminating what is real. She is committed to depicting the reality of the body, lovingly drawing its curves and lines in her carefully sculpted plaster casts. ‘I don’t see Black bodies being celebrated, and I want to celebrate our bodies. I want to celebrate the curves and the realness of women. This Eurocentric view of what beauty is has to go away. You need to normalise everyone’s bodies, and I hope with this show I do that.’

For Davis, the exhibition offers a moment to reflect on her development as an artist. ‘My studio is expanding and I’m taking more control of the process,’ she says. ‘I’m thinking bigger, beyond the galleries and the museums. I want to do outdoor work and I want to go large, expanding my practice and showing people things they haven’t seen. I’m on a roll – let’s do this. It’s giving me more confidence to express myself and not hide anymore.’

‘Wishful Thinking’ will be on show from 5 November-19 December at Salon 94, New York; ‘Not My Circus’ will be on show from 15 November-4 July, at Seattle Art Museum, Seattle

A version of this article appears in the November 2026 Art Issue of Wallpaper*, available from 8 October in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today