PAF006Davina Semo, Mother, 2020-2024
Medium
Patinated cast bronze bell
Date
2020-2024
Dimensions
48 inches tall x 20 1/2 inches in diameter; overall hanging dimensions variable
Photo
Ben Moisen Photography
Bells mark time and call us together. They can signal danger or celebration, gathering communities in moments of shared attention and purpose. Across her practice, Davina Semo explores the powerful resonance of bells as civic totems, creating sculptures that engage sound, participation, and collective experience.
For Powder Art Foundation, Semo presents Mother (2020-2024), a monumental patinated bronze bell installed within the landscape of Powder Mountain. The third bell in the artist’s ongoing series, Mother possesses a distinct voice, surface, and presence. Suspended amongst the trees overlooking the expansive views of the Wasatch Mountains, the work invites visitors to pause, ring the bell, and experience its sound as it carries across the landscape.
Attuned to the rhythms of weather, season, and human activity, Mother creates a moment for reflection, intention, or a simple connection with the environment before continuing on through the mountain landscape.
AboutTheArtist
Davina Semo was born in 1981 in Washington DC, and lives and works in Los Angeles. Semo has exhibited in group exhibitions at the MCA Denver, CO; Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, CA; CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art, San Francisco; Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco; SOMArts, San Francisco; White Columns, New York; and the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington D.C. She enjoyed a solo exhibition at the di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, Napa, for which Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Forrest Gander composed poetry in accompaniment with the artist’s sculpture. Semo has been awarded numerous commissions including a major solo installation at Brooklyn Bridge Park Pier 1, New York, organized by Public Art Fund in 2021. Her work is included in collections at the Davis Museum at Wellesley College, MA, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington DC. Semo lives and works in Los Angeles.
