Artist Sydney Williams Speaks about "Building Blocks"

For nearly six years, Cydonia Gallery in Dallas, Texas, has supported artists and hosted numerous exhibitions showcasing both local and international talent. Under the guidance of Briana Williams, who had been mentored by Hanh Ho, Cydonia Gallery promotes artists in several ways beyond exhibitions.

In October, for example, the gallery visited with artist Sydney Williams regarding her latest series, Building Blocks, which was displayed in the gallery’s “Impressions” exhibition in Summer 2019. Williams was inspired to use childrens' toy building blocks as creative materials. This was a natural progression for her debut at Cydonia in 2016, where she exhibited oversized spinning tops or dreidels. Her recent works feature the three primary colors, yellow, blue, and red, as well as the secondary color green, a color palette Williams described as going against her traditional tastes.

Furthermore, Williams noted how she had previously taken an instinctual approach to most of her works regarding color selection. She used the building blocks project to embrace unfamiliar restrictions and remove herself from her visual comfort zone. In fact, when work on the project slowed, Williams imposed additional restrictions to focus her creative energies even more, namely by studying the shapes and colors of the building blocks.

Williams went on to describe the project as a means of exploring serious personal matters, such as mental health, through seemingly elementary processes and materials. The complete interview can be read on the gallery’s website, www.cydoniagallery.com/blog.

FAQ: What does Process-Oriented Art Mean?

Cydonia has a Quora account where we help others learn more about contemporary art.  Contemporary Art often references 'Process' or 'Process-Oriented.'  What does that mean?

Simply put, process-art means art that is about making art for the artist. This act of making and the materials has an inherent and often aesthetic value in the final product.

This means that the artist seeks meaning in the substrate, the meaning, and the possibilities of the materials and methods used to make the work of art.

For example, we represent a young abstract painter. To best understand her work, it would be useful to talk about on the materiality, the viscosity, the textures and malleability of oil paints. She derives value or meaning or purpose from the process of painting. Working WITH oil paints is paramount to what she does. While the work of art is beautiful, its beauty in her case is examined though the medium.

If  you consider traditional landscape painters: we would communicate more about his background, where he visited, why the locations were significant to represent. In this case, the meaning is less about his materials and more about the final product: a picture of a mountain-scape, tress, wildlife.

FAQ: Are there any artists who found success after 40?

Cydonia has a Quora Account where we help readers navigate contemporary art.  Here's our answer to:  Are there any artists who have had success after 40?

Yes!  Yayoi Kusama, Louise Bourgeois, Sam Gilliam are all artists who have had immense success. But these artists were seniors before world-wide success. Gallerists and curators have to re-discover them.

It’s okay to be an artist over 40. It’s important to try to show as often and as frequently as you can. If there are large gaps in your CV, it doesn’t look good. It’s hard for a dealer to convince a collector to buy your art if you haven’t shown in a long time.

Showing is a measure and a test of professionalism. The more shows you have, the better. At some point, hopefully, quantity turns into quality. So when you have exhibition opportunities, sign those contracts, honor them, and make the best work that you can and do it on time.

Creative Exhibition Making at Cydonia Gallery

Founded by Hanh Ho and directed by Briana Williams, Cydonia Gallery is a venue for emerging artists located inside a historic gemstone: the Texas Theatre in Oak Cliff. The gallery has developed a track record of creative curating practices, exhibiting thoughtful and challenging juxtapositions of art objects. Objects made of different media, from different artists from various places around the world, that exhibit different philosophies are installed to create dialogues and ask viewers new questions.
Commercial viability needed to be balanced conceptually and aesthetically. The gallery curated every presentation, for every exhibition, at both fairs and in its physical spaces.

 In August 2019, the Dallas Morning News brought attention to the the curated exhibition “In Memory." The exhibition reflected Briana Williams' desires to connect the gallery to the neighborhood, challenging the general public's ideas of what is 'high' and 'low' art. Undertaken in tandem with community art center, Mercado369, the art space's neighbor on Jefferson Boulevard, the art the exhibition explored intersections between global contemporary and traditional artisans and what the contemporary art sector has generally classified as 'craft.' The exhibition featured pottery from Mercado369 in conversation with Alicja Bielawska, who had her first show with Cydonia in 2015. Mata Ortiz ceramics from Chihuahua, Mexico reflected age-old indigenous techniques, techniques which had been revived in the 1970s through the efforts of Juan Quezada Celado. With a location adjacent to ruins where ancient potters originally created the ceramics, the municipality of Mata Ortiz reemerged as an epicenter for contemporary artisans. Alicja Bielawska’s drawings provided an alternative center of gravity in the exhibition.

The contemporary Polish artist previously explored colorful, eye popping installations, drawings, and sculptures in several presentations with the gallery.  For this particular exhibition, Bielawska created ink, pen, and collage pieces, representing a more understated and methodical approach. In keeping with Cydonia Gallery's historically democratic curatorial approach and mission to make contemporary ideas more accessible, the exhibition pairing was aimed toward erasing lines that demarcate what constitutes “real art” and presenting the artistic process as a continuum that spans geographies and generations.

Where are all the Women Artists? Cydonia Gallery answers.

Cydonia Logo Image from : cydoniagallery.com

Based in Dallas, Texas, Cydonia Gallery is a contemporary art gallery led by owner and head curator Briana Williams. The gallery was established as a venue for international programming with a penchant for under-represented artists by former director Hanh Ho. A few years before dialogues about equity and representation made its way to mainstream media, Cydonia Gallery started quietly showing women artists, a lot. And they did it over and over, again, which was unexpected because the space opened with a group show about masculinity. Without explicitly defining its programming as a pro-woman or confining its exhibitions to only showing women artists and feminist ideology, the upstart gallery featured conceptual ideas that happened to be made by women.

In 2016-2017, the gallery featured only women artists in both their gallery and at fairs. Booths at fairs were curated and coordinated based on ideas from their stable. The gallery re-introduced Caroline Mousseau to her native Canada in a solo presentation at Art Toronto 2016. Polish post conceptualist Alicja Bielawska showed in dialogue with Canadian painter Caroline Mousseau at Zona Maco in Mexico City in 2017. The gallery exhibition year started with a video installation from Mexico-city based Julieta Aguinaco, then debuted oversized, ambitious concrete spinning tops by local Sydney Williams, introduced Belgian Elise Eeraerts' ceramic works, and ended with a second solo exhibition for Caroline Mousseau. After nearly 5 years, the gallery graded itself: 71% of its programming showed female artists. 83% of fairs showed female artists. Mousseau, Bielawska, and Eeraerts have since been awarded numerous awards and prizes, with shows and residencies around the world, solidifying the quality of their practices.

None of the shows during the 2016-2017 year or Cydonia Gallery's previous and existing programming addressed womens' issues or feminism directly. Previous director Hanh Ho proved for nearly 5 years that women artists are everywhere, all over the world, that they were accessible, smart, and relevant in thinking about how we live today. While emerging women artists and artists in the contemporary discourse were interested in equity and agency, their work needn't be able their gender. Ideas regarding paints materiality, the direct links from drawing and sculpture, the connection between time and history, reality and perception, and the importance of touch as a sense for understanding. None of these ideas were related to gender. These were interesting ideas that didn't need a agenda other than being conceptually strong.

New director Briana Williams plans to alter the mission slighting by working with an even more diverse roster, but the creative direction demonstrated that the lack of women artist representation within contemporary art isn't due to lack of access or quality. Equity and equality, for the small gallery in Dallas, are only acts of decision-making. Equality doesn't have to be a monumental act of sacrifice of quality.

To learn more, visit www.cydoniagallery.com; www.facebook.com/cydoniagallery; @cydoniagallery; @CydoniaG