Genevra Daley is the winner of the 2021 Keister and Allen Art Purchase Prize for a Master of Fine Arts student in studio art. One of her works will be purchased for the UC Davis Fine Arts Collection.

The award was presented June 10 in a virtual opening celebration of the annual Arts and Humanities Graduate Exhibition at UC Davis. The show is accessible through the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art website until Sept. 6.

The Graduate Exhibition features Daley’s installation titled “Entryway.” 

“‘Entryway’ enlists discarded garments and accessories to create forms that reflect the tacit relationship between my body and material,” said Daley. “Through a process of deconstruction and alteration each garment starts to reshape, and with that transformation begins to carry new meaning. As meaning is teased out, I rebuild the garment to extend my sensorial experience into the physical structure of the piece. The work plays with forms that confuse the limits of the body, ideas of internal as external, feelings made physical, and the uncomfortable, awkward, and private aspects of the human body. ‘Entryway’ acts as a domestic setting for these sculptures to live, wait, and meet with one another, providing a space for the viewer to envision themselves in each piece.”

Daley received both her master’s degree in studio art in 2018 and her bachelor’s degree in fine arts in 2009 from Maharishi International University in Fairfield, Iowa. She earned a certificate of merit in graphic design from Kendal College in the United Kingdom in 2011. Daley has a background in ceramics and illustration.

The award, established in 2017, is made possible by Shaun Keister, vice chancellor of the UC Davis Office of Development and Alumni Relations, and Walter Allen, interim support services supervisor of UC Davis IT Express.