Thavibu Gallery is pleased to present the art exhibition Floating Map by Davina Stephens, a 41 years old artist who was born in New Zealand and is based in Bali.   

Davina Stephens works between the several cultures that she has either visited or lived in as a means to satisfy her curiosity about different working methods. At the root of her curiosity is the need for an artist to understand his or her political identity by comparison and by direct experience of cultural difference.  

Art followers associate Davina’s work with pop art, neo-figuration, or naïve art. However, these associations are no longer valid today because now is a time when artists are exploring many different disciplines as fields for their creativity. However Davina’s use of different materials, media and techniques, indeed betrays a familiarity with major movements in the history of modern art. Most significant in her visual work is the way she plays with the structures of cultures that she had previously considered foreign and exotic, compared to the cultural spaces that these structures inhabit. These spaces include the profane and sacred, which are considered very different places by both east and West.