Beth Davila Waldman pursued her career in the arts initially at Wellesley College where she launched her current practice with a senior sculptural thesis entitled “Transposing Time and Culture: Personal and Abstract Interpretations of Inca and Pre-Incan Artwork”. She continued her commitment to exploring site as her conceptual focus at SFAI from 2003 to 2005. Her work was recognized early on by the San Francisco Art Institute community with the 2004 annual Harold E. Weiner Memorial Sculpture Award.
Since, her art practice has been influenced by borrowed symbols and landscapes from her maternal homeland Peru for over two decades. Beth uses image, material, and architecture to speak about transformations on culture over time on the individual and society. Through landscape, Beth examines how politics and economics create shift on culture on macro and micro levels. Her work excavates the conceived idea of sanctuary, using the colonized and converted cultures of her Peruvian ancestors as a gateway for those dialogues.
Most recently, Beth has been awarded residencies at Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, at Playa Institute on the edge of Oregon's Great Basin, and at EditionBasel in Basel, Switzerland. Beth has featured her work in a satellite art fair during the 2019 Hong Kong Art Basel Week and in partnership with San Francisco Art Institute was the opening Presenter for 18th Annual Photo Alliance Lecture Series in conjunction with David Maisel at the San Francisco Art Institute Osher Lecture Hall. This August, she was an artist-in-residence in Los Angeles at the 18th Street Arts Center.
