Beverly Semmes (American, b.1958) is a sculptor, photographer, videographer, and textile and performance artist. Born in Washington, D.C., Semmes received a BA in art history, and a BFA, after attending the Boston Museum School, Skowhegan School of Art, and Tufts University. She then studied at the New York Studio School and Yale School of Art, where she received an MFA in 1987.
Semmes first began showing her works in the early 1990s, and quickly became known for her oversized articles of clothing, primarily dresses, which she alters by elongating the arms and hemming the length to extend to the floor, encouraging the excess fabric to gather at the bottom of the installation. There is a surrealistic tone to much of Semmes’s work, and even when offering cultural critique, her works have a humorous edge. In 1995, the artist designed costumes and sets for the French choreographer Mathilde Monnier in Montpellier, France. This collaborative production, titled Nuit, continues to tour worldwide today.
Her recent work, The Feminist Responsibility Project (FRP) explores desire, meaning, and visual pleasure through drawn- and painted-over images of women from pornography magazines. These works were shown in conjunction with ceramic vessels, evocative of prehistoric fertility sculptures.
Her work is included in the collections of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C.; the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Denver Art Museum, and the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, among others.
She lives and works in New York City.
