Twelve bells hang from heavy black chains in the Benton Museum of Art’s outdoor sculpture patio. Some are cast in dark, textured bronze. Others are made from translucent blue, green, pink and violet glass that catches the changing afternoon light. Together, they resemble a collection of familiar objects made strange by their variations in material, proportion and sound.
About 30 visitors gathered at the Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College on Saturday, Sept. 19, for a reception and conversation celebrating the opening of a new exhibition by San Francisco artist Davina Semo.
“Tender Shield” places the bells in the museum’s back patio and large bronze reliefs inside its Art Hall. Organized by Director of the Benton Museum Victoria Sancho Lobis and former curatorial intern Tristen Alizée Leone PO ’26, the exhibition is one of three that opened last month and will be on view through June 27, 2027. The other two, which center on artists Saul Steinberg and Mavis Pusey, respectively, held opening receptions in August.
“We’ve been planning this exhibition for a long time now, and this is the first time I’ve exhibited my work outdoors,” Semo said. “I’m really grateful for this opportunity because it really opened up my practice.”
At the beginning of the reception, Semo gave a talk where she discussed the process behind the exhibit. Planning for the patio prompted her to make bells with glass, a material she had never used for the form before. Visible through the museum windows, natural light moved across the bronze reliefs. Semo encouraged visitors to walk past them while it was still light outside to see their surfaces change.
Layla Virji PO ’27 noticed that effect before entering the patio.
“The big bronze pieces are really intriguing to me, especially in the lighting,” Virji said.
Outside, the bells hung at different heights beneath a wooden structure. Sunlight passed through the glass, while the wooden beams cast rectangular shadows across the concrete floor. Semo described making the heavy bronze bells as messy, physical work, though the finished pieces seem to float above visitors.
“I think the bell, for me, does embody this metaphorically in a certain way, because it’s really stoic but really passionate when you ring it,” Semo said.
The bell first caught Semo’s interest as a bronze vessel while she was working in a foundry almost 10 years ago. Her interest grew into what she called an obsession: she read about bells, noticed their shapes in everyday objects and traveled to Europe to work with a bell foundry and learn to tune them.
“I’ve never worked with a form before that’s been such a big part of history,” Semo said. “Everyone has a bell story that they share with me.”
Bells can mark time, summon a congregation or sound across a city. Semo said people bring those associations with them when they encounter her sculptures. Some have even sent her photographs of bells they found while traveling.
The reception gave visitors a chance to ask Semo about her materials, career and process. Students, faculty members and Claremont residents moved between the museum and patio with food and wine, gathering around her with questions. Earlier that week, Semo spoke with students in classes at Pomona and Scripps College.
One student, Hazel Kurian SC ’30, was visiting the Benton for the first time. A perforated bell from the exhibition’s promotional materials initially caught her attention, but she found herself drawn to the glass bells once she reached the patio.
“I think that art always should be viewed outside too, beyond just being in a gallery with walls,” Kurian said. “They’ve done a really good job organizing an exhibit, making it accessible and engaging.”
“Sometimes things are in their latent state, and they’re beautiful in that latent state,” she said. “But they also have this other capacity to make music or to vibrate in this way that is really unique.”
During an “activation,” visitors gathered in the patio as Semo rang the bells one by one, each producing a different tone.
As Semo rang the bells, church bells began to sound elsewhere in Claremont at the same time. For a few moments, it was difficult to tell which sounds came from the installation and which had traveled to the patio from beyond the museum.
During the conversation, Semo recalled a passage by Annie Dillard in her book “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” about discovering one’s capacity to ring. Dillard wrote, “I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck.”
Semo connected the line to her sculptures, which hold the possibility of sound until they are rung.
“Sometimes things are in their latent state, and they’re beautiful in that latent state,” she said. “But they also have this other capacity to make music or to vibrate in this way that is really unique.”
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