Sidney Mullis
Headshot by Sarah Huny Young (2020)
Sidney Mullis lives and works in Pittsburgh, PA. Her work has been exhibited in a number of locations including Berlin, Tokyo, England, and Croatia. Solo shows include the Leslie Lohman Museum (NYC), Wick Gallery (NYC), Bunker Projects (PA), Neon Heater Gallery (OH), Bucknell University (PA), Rowan University (NJ), University of Mary Washington (VA), and more. She has been an artist-in-residence at The Wassaic Project, Women’s Studio Workshop, MASS MoCA, Ox-Bow, Bunker Projects, among others. Her work has been featured in publications such as Hyperallergic, LVL3 Gallery, Young Space, Maake Magazine, De:Formal, and Sculpture Magazine.
Can you tell us a bit about the process of making your work?
Visions of objects come to the fore of my brain. I take the ones that linger to the studio and set out to build them physically. I have a background in dance and consider my art materials to be my dance partners. In the studio, we share who leads. We move about in an improvised choreography—a back-and-forth where one action influences the next. During this exchange, I remain aware of what is lost and gained from switching the mind to material and back again. At the end of this dance, the mental image of the object becomes less vivid, less important, and the physical object grows into sharp focus.
We understand that your works make up a ceremonial landscape for your younger self. Would you tell us more about this space and how you imagined it?
I am building a make-believe forest that is the resurrection space for my childhood self. As an adult (a role I never auditioned for), I have become preoccupied with those childhood selves that came before. Where did they go? How do we mourn them? And now, why do we speak about my “inner child” as if she is sometimes there? Can I keep her?
By building this invented ceremonial landscape, I try to find where those childhood selves go in adulthood and if it is possible to remember, re-enliven, and retain their childlike attributes. Physically, this space is built of many parts that come together in sculptural installations. Their scenes appear mutable as if staged for performance, play or ritual.
Shrine for my pocketed youth, 2020, sand, wax, air dry clay, rocks, marbles, chain, fishing lures, beads, bells, kid’s construction paper, wood, paint, plastic, resin, pleather, fake grapes, craft animal eyes, seashells and coins from my childhood collections, size varies (central tree is 86 x 36 x 36")
What are some references you draw upon in your work? Are there any themes in particular that you like to focus on when creating?
While making, I circulate through a lot of references and let them run into each other, collide, dissolve, and crossfade.
I think about children’s toys; macaroni art; make-believe spaces; nonlinear storytelling; social constraints and expectations around aging, the body, gender, and sexuality; the forest in the natural world, as a character, as a playground, and as a transformational space; seeds and other germinating forces, bushes that are homes for other creatures, and plants that look dead, but are actually alive; gut feelings, intimacy, proximity, movement, etc.
Where are some of your favorite spaces that support contemporary art or design? Now that the art has an online presence has that changed?
I recently moved to Pittsburgh, PA so I’ve been having a ball checking out and getting acquainted with Bunker Projects, the Mattress Factory, SPACE gallery, Boom Concepts, Silver Eye, the Carnegie Museum of Art, Miller ICA at CMU, August Wilson Center, The Warhol Museum, Brew House Association, Associated Artists of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Glass Center, Small Mall, Contemporary Craft, Randyland, and more!
I’d say I’ve largely researched art spaces online before going to them in person, so internet presence has always been really valuable for me. From an access standpoint, it’s important that art spaces have a thoughtful, information-full, online presence. With online exhibitions becoming a mainstay due to the pandemic, I hope this consideration continues to develop allowing more people to engage with contemporary art, easily and freely.
The Town Between My Toes, 2019, sand, wax, raw rigatoni and shell pasta, pleather, black food coloring, olives, carrots, olive pits, cotton string, resin, wire, wood, paint, rocks, teddy bears, size varies
Who are some of your favorite artists? Or who has been inspirational recently? Feel free to mention any artists from friends to blue chips or books about artists.
I have been looking at the work of Athena Papadopoulous, Zsofia Keresztes, Matthew Ronay and Jonathan Baldock quite a bit. I feel a kinship to the work of Loren Eiferman, Kelsey Tynik, and Andrew William Allison. And, I learn from the carefree spirit and frenetic energy that is also in their work.
Do you have any shows coming up? Anything else you would like to share?
Tree Arch, 2021, black pleather, sand, felt, wax, string, wood, paint, 86 x 80 x 60"
I am currently in an online show called New Contemporaries with Dodomu Gallery. It is on view till October 5. I recently wrote an exhibition review of Lacey Hall’s solo exhibition Interior Castle at Bunker Projects in Pittsburgh, PA. I did an interview with LVL3 gallery conducted by Kaitlyn Albrecht in July and writer Anna Mirzayan wrote about a studio visit she had with me that is now published in Femme Art Review.
Lastly, I am looking for an exhibition venue for this make-believe forest that would allow me to paint both the floor and walls. Maybe the Internet gods will see this and work some pixel magic.
Sidney Mullis’s work is included in our show “Transcendental States” September 15th - October 15th, 2021. Visit her work at sidneymullis.com or on Instagram @sidney_mullis