Bia Davou, a significant figure in the visual arts scene in Greece, emerged within the broad artistic explorations of the 1960s and 1970s, a period marked by critical sociopolitical and art-historical transformations. Due to family objections, B. Davou could not pursue formal art training but instead attended the private art school of painter Kostas Iliadis (1903 – 1991) between 1952 and 1958. Β. Davou’s artistic practice progressively departed from traditional artistic conventions through continuous research and experimentation at the interplay of art, language, science, and technology. Her diverse body of work integrated cybernetics, electronics, programming, mathematics, and poetry, reflecting an innovative engagement with new media and its methodologies. In this context, Β. Davou employed a wide range of techniques, including painting, drawing, printed circuits, copper, Bakelite, and embroidery. Her conceptualization of human–machine communication systems was informed by an intellectual dialogue with her partner, mathematician and artist Pantelis Xagoraris (1929-2000).

By the mid-1960s, Β. Davou began experimenting with modes of abstraction, seeking innovative ways to expand her artistic expression. Between 1967 and 1970, she created Plegmata [Grids], a series of constructions utilizing materials such as PVC and Plexiglas. These works, characterized by overlapping placements, anticipate the grid as a fundamental component of her artistic method. Her subsequent series, Diagrammata [Flowcharts] and Kiklomata [Circuits] (1973–1975), reflect an engagement with computer flowcharts and the formal and conceptual aspects of their technical language. This body of work marked the inception of her sustained interest in logical systems and mathematical communication codes, underscoring a broader critique of both the social role and communicative function of art.

By the mid-1970s, Β. Davou adopted seriality as the organizing principle of her practice. She structured her artworks through logical and non-hierarchical series, which she termed Siraikes domes [Serial structures]. These structures were based on the binary numeral system and developed through sequential logic. While executed in various media, including sculpture, painting, and embroidery, drawing served as the primary medium for developing her serial methodology. Within this framework, Β. Davou incorporated the Fibonacci sequence, envisioning the necessity of a visual code, designed to facilitate communication between the artist and the audience.

A defining characteristic of Β. Davou’s artistic practice was the meticulous, labor-intensive manual execution of her works, which undermined their predetermined structural and systematic conception. By the late 1970s, the extensive manual process involved in developing serial works led her to engage with Homer’s Odyssey and the mythological act of weaving by Penelope. This marked a critical turning point in her artistic development, signifying a departure from the rigid systems she had previously constructed. Β. Davou transcribed Homeric verses into numerical sequences on graph paper or embroidered them in fabric, forming spatial environments alluding to sails. The Odyssey‘s central themes of nostos (homecoming) and thanatos (death) became the conceptual axes of her work, intertwined with her personal experiences.

Β. Davou’s work was reevaluated and reinterpreted posthumously following a major retrospective organized in 2008 at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens (ΕΜΣΤ), which holds an extensive collection of her works.