[ad_1]
In artist Jordan Sheridan’s recent work, “Illusory Stasis,” viewers navigate a maze-like installation that leads to a glowing center. Inside hangs a cocoon-shaped bulb that glows outward. It’s popular, but as creepy or “supernatural” as the artist describes it.
This work is Sheridan’s latest and focuses on the themes of motherhood and identity. The work, the mother and artist’s most concrete to date, seeks to achieve a healthy balance between work and personal life.
“It’s about sweet spots that don’t exist, unicorns,” Sheridan said. “Everyone keeps telling me to find the balance. It’s about showing that it’s otherworldly…you find this thing that doesn’t exist.”
The work was created for the 701 CCA Awards Finalist Exhibition, which runs until January. Sheridan planned her own wedding on her own before this piece was created, and upon her return, she had three weeks to create this piece for her piece.
It’s no small feat for an artist who creates mixed-media installations in a room. When she taught studio art at the University of South Carolina art department, she worked 18-hour days for three weeks before moving to a gallery space, she said.
“It was really, really hard, those were the hardest three weeks of my life,” she said.
Sheridan’s work paid off, though, when she won the 701 CCA in November.
The result was a six-week paid residency at the Columbia Art Organization and Gallery 701 Center for Contemporary Art, where a solo exhibition highlighted their work in residence. Now in its sixth year, the awards focus on highlighting young artists, with those 40 and under eligible. This is one of only Columbia University’s awards of its kind.
701 CCA executive director Caitlin Bright, who was appointed in October to succeed artist and former director Michaela Pilar Brown, explained that the judging panel will select the winning By. Bright, who was not on the jury, said Sheridan’s “emotional content” could stand out on the three-person committee.
“People are very sensitive to the messages and experiences that are conveyed,” Bright said.
For Sheridan, “Illusory Stasis” is a continuation of some of her work on the theme of motherhood, from the installations “The Mother” and “Enmeshed” (both on display at different 701 CCA exhibitions) to her previous paintings, some It’s something she co-produced with her son when he was very young.
It’s also a quick boost for the artist, who won’t earn an MFA from USC until 2021. She has also received other honors. In 2021, she is one of five recipients of the SC Arts Council’s Emerging Artist Award.
In “Mother,” Sheridan analyzes motherhood more broadly, focusing on her changing relationship with her son. It was a mass of woven purple and blue webs produced during her graduate education and as a result of her dissertation work.
Her thesis advisor and USC associate professor Sara Schneckloth said she remembers when Sheridan came up with the idea for the installation. Until then, Sheridan had been working as a painter, focusing on similar themes related to motherhood.
“You can tell in her paintings, they do a lot of things, but she still wants to explore this extra dimension, quite literally,” Schneckloth said. It’s come so fast, so much. They have so much potential and presence.”
In her final year of graduate school, she showed Schneckloth the “expressive” and “frenetic” crayon sketches she wanted to create. Schneckloth agreed, and the result was “THE MOTHER,” which also later appeared in 701 CCA’s Biennial, a survey of the state’s top contemporary art.
During his time at USC, Sheridan worked as an adjunct lecturer and assistant to painter George Hetherington. He said he was impressed by the originality of her work.
“While Jordan explored other directions and (is) being successful in all of them,” he said. “The more formal he works, the better she does it, the more creative she is.”
Sheridan’s focus on motherhood is perhaps understandable: She’s a single mother in graduate school at Columbia University — though she met her current partner early on, and she credits him with helping her manage parenting through classwork.
Still, she finds herself drawn to the topic and how it relates to who she is as a mother and as an artist.
“I think (my interest is) because being a mother is such a big part of my life, and when you have young kids, it’s basically your life,” she said. “It’s also a way of looking at who I am as an artist and as a mother. … It’s the blurring of who’s who, because I’m committed to being in between.”
Editor’s note: Caitlin Bright, executive director of 701 CCA, said Sheridan’s residency and solo exhibition will take place during the next fiscal year.
[ad_2]
Source link