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.
