Photos by Olivia Candaine (Art Education K-12, '23) and Libby Truett (Art Education K-12, '23)
/səˈmadik/ adjective
1. relating to the body, especially as distinct from the mind.
Body, the thing we are most familiar with. It is our self, our family, friends, partners, strangers, enemies. It is the vessel through which we experience the world. How we feel, how we act, and how we display emotion transpires through our flesh. We acknowledge our presence to others, beings and things, and their presence to ourselves.
Somatic is a series of sculptures that explore embodied cognition and uses our awareness of the body to evoke feelings.
The sculptures, made up of found and mass-produced objects, explore literal actions with literal materials. Rope is rope, it shows action: it binds, suspends, carries. The 2x4 leans against the wall or lies on the floor. The objects I use reflect the blue collar, industrial city of Pittsburgh, the heart of the rust belt, where I was raised. These materials carry a history, often of labor and industry. I take the familiar and place it in an unfamiliar setting and, in doing so, I ask the viewer to engage the work through their body.
Artist Bio
Cydnei Mallory is an interdisciplinary artist currently based in Phoenix Arizona. She received her MFA from Arizona State University and her BFA from The Pennsylvania State University. As a native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Mallory is no stranger to industry. Interested in materiality and a natural draw to mundane objects, Mallory uses everything from cast metals, rope, and basic fabrics, to hairnets, silicone, and hair. Her choice of materials are formally alluring, engaging the viewer with a familiar material placed in an unfamiliar setting. Combining traditional and non-traditional practices in her work, Mallory uses the body as a reference to explore issues surrounding stereotyped ideas of gender, sexuality, and class.
This exhibition and events are generously sponsored by the Ballantine Visiting Artist Fund.