SoWa Boston is once again playing host to “Madam President: The Monument to the First Female President of the USA,” the timely art installment from headline-making local artist Donna Dodson. Also referred to as “The Mighty Lioness,” the wooden fixture, resembling an ancient totem pole, is 13 feet tall and weighs more than a ton. Donna Dodson sculpted her in 2014 from a single log of poplar courtesy of Lessard and Sons in Hampton NH.
According to Dodson, this monument is for the dream that every girl can become President of the United States of America and is also Dodson’s homage to the great American Sculptor, Daniel Chester French, creator of the Lincoln Monument in Washington DC. The statue was first exhibited in 2014 in SoWa Boston before it traveled to Chesterwood with the Boston Sculptors Gallery, the historic home of Daniel Chester French, and now it returns to Thayer St in SoWa.
No stranger to the limelight, Dodson made headlines earlier this summer with her controversial Seagull Cinderella which is on display along the New Bedford Seaport Artwalk through early October.
Donna Dodson is a member of the Boston Sculptors Gallery, located at 486 Harrison Ave. Her artwork celebrates the mystical relationship between human beings and the animal kingdom. Dodson has been using wood as a medium for nearly 20 years, exploring femininity, humor, grace, as well as power through beauty and emotional strength. Her unique vision reflects the relationship between humanity and animal spirits that has existed since ancient artwork and cave-paintings. Her figures are almost always female and range in size from the intimate to the monumental.
“Because there were no icons of women in the church that I grew up in, my vision is to create them. Through hybrid female-animal forms that I sculpt in wood, I flesh out sensuality, sexuality and soul with a well-proportioned figurative vocabulary,” said Dodson.
The Lioness joins 22+ new galleries and boutiques that recently joined the other shops and Galleries along Thayer Street to make for a total of over 60 Galleries and shops in addition to the 70+ Artists Studios at 450 Harrison Ave. Donna will be debuting a new exhibition of her work, ‘Zodiac’ opening on Friday, September 9th, 2016, at Boston Sculptors Gallery (BSG) in SoWa.