to reverberate tenderly
Installation view, sonia louise davis: to reverberate tenderly (December 6, 2023 - April 7, 2024). Photo courtesy Queens Museum, credit Hai Zhang.
Upcoming exhibition
November 22, 2025 – May 24, 2026
Located on the first floor of The Baker Museum
Visual artist, writer and performer sonia louise davis works within a lineage of Black feminist abstraction and avant-garde music. Her latest multisensory exhibition, to reverberate tenderly, is a living environment for creative activity that reflects the artist’s deep engagement with improvisation. The exhibition includes textile-based soft paintings, a wall mural composed of painted gestures and neon elements, and custom steel instruments, or “sounders,” that can be activated by performers. The artist creates her soft paintings using an industrial tufting machine, running yarns through the surface of each work to create voluminous forms with high relief and texture. davis has invented a personal vocabulary of lines, curves, dots, rings and dashes that she considers akin to musical notation. These marks are interwoven, layered and repeated throughout the gallery, creating a musical score in three dimensions.
More than passive abstractions, the bright and vibratory works also function as active, participatory objects encouraging a heightened sense of awareness and deep listening. Her exhibition, to reverberate tenderly, explores the possibilities of a new kind of sonic space, one that is attuned to vulnerability and generosity while offering a soft landing for ideas to resonate.
sonia louise davis earned her B.A. with honors in African American studies from Wesleyan University and is an alumna of the Whitney Independent Study Program. She was a 2023-24 artist-in-residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem, and in 2024-25, her work was on view at MoMA PS1 as part of the exhibition Pass Carry Hold: Studio Museum Artists in Residence 2023-24.
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Museum Admission
Selected Works
Installation view, sonia louise davis: to reverberate tenderly (December 6, 2023 - April 7, 2024). Photo courtesy Queens Museum, credit Hai Zhang.
sonia louise davis (b. United States, 1988). emergence: natural affinities, 2023. Peruvian highland wool, merino, merino/nylon blend, acrylic/wool blend, acrylic, wool and recycled wool yarns, 58 x 58 x 2 in. Courtesy the artist.
sonia louise davis (b. United States, 1988). emergence: springtime again, 2023. Merino, merino/silk blend, recycled wool and acrylic yarns, 58 x 58 x 2 in. Courtesy the artist.
sonia louise davis (b. United States, 1988). emergence: wellspring, 2023. Peruvian highland wool, merino, recycled acrylic, cotton, nylon, silk and linen yarns, 58 x 58 x 2 in. Courtesy the artist.
sonia louise davis
Photo: Courtney Sofiah Yates
Associated Events
© Sofiah Yates
Artist Talk
sonia louise davis to reverberate tenderly
Tuesday, March 24, 2pm
Ubben Signature Event Space
sonia louise davis, artist
Exhibiting artist sonia louise davis discusses her artistic practice and her multisensory exhibition, sonia louise davis: to reverberate tenderly, which serves as a living environment for creative activity that reflects the artist’s deep engagement with improvisation.
© sonia louise davis
Art After Hours Exhibition Performance
to reverberate tenderly
Sounders Performance
Wednesday, March 25, 7pm
Ubben Signature Event Space
In conjunction with her solo exhibition to reverberate tenderly, artist sonia louise davis invites musicians Rena Anakwe, Sarah Galdes and Sugar Vendil to improvise with her three steel instruments, or sounders, for a special performance in the Ubben Signature Event Space. Performers will use percussion, string, voice, and other experimental techniques to respond to the exhibition’s multi-sensory environment and davis’ large-scale mural, score for The Baker Museum (2025).
This exhibition is organized by the Queens Museum, New York, and curated by Lindsey Berfond, assistant curator.