Artist of the week · October 31 to November 9, 2026
sonia louise davis
sonia louise davis is a visual artist, writer and performer, born and raised in New York City and living in Harlem. Her work is invested in improvisation as embodied research, across tufted soft paintings, invented steel instruments, neon, sound and text. An honors graduate of Wesleyan University and an alumna of the Whitney Independent Study Program, she was a 2023 to 2024 artist in residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem, and her solo show to reverberate tenderly began at the Queens Museum and traveled to the Baker Museum in Naples, Florida.
Background: HESSE FLATOW artist biography and the artist's own CV.
On view nowHESSE FLATOW · New York
a promise, a portal, possibility
Oct 30 to Dec 5, 2026
Her second solo show with the gallery: eight new tufted soft paintings, a steel sculptural instrument, neon and hand drawn wall text at 77 Franklin Street, with a text by Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts. Dates and details: hesseflatow.com
Why davis
Three reasons. One: the material, tufted yarns in layered color carry her drawings into soft paintings you read with the body. Two: the sound, her invented instruments, the sounders, are steel sculptures made to be played, built for improvisation with collaborating musicians. Three: the moment, a Studio Museum in Harlem residency capped by the MoMA PS1 show Pass Carry Hold, a Queens Museum solo that traveled to the Baker Museum, and now a second solo at HESSE FLATOW, all inside three years.
In the show's text, Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts writes: “For davis, drawing is a way of dancing and what we are seeing are songs.” The artist, who works across writing and performance too, treats improvisation as research the body does.
In the posts
From the artist's own Instagram, @sonia_louise_davis, plus the gallery's post for the current show, all through Instagram's official embed. These are their posts, not our images.