Sydney Acosta (b. 1987, Yanaguana aka San Antonio, Texas) received her M.F.A. in painting and drawing from UCLA in 2021 and her B.A. from Sacramento State University in 2015. She has exhibited her work at Dreamsong (2023), White Columns (2023), Michael Benevento (2023), the CASTLE gallery (2022), Onsen Confidential with Kristina Kite gallery hosted by Aoyama Meguro in Tokyo (2022), Root Division in San Francisco (2021), and Axis gallery in Sacramento (2019). She has been supported by the MacDowell Fellowship and residency, the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, the LA Lakers emerging artist grant and the American Austrian Foundation. She has upcoming exhibitions at Human Resources Los Angeles and Kristina Kite gallery in Los Angeles.
Using charcoal, pastel, and oil on paper or canvas, I
make drawings and paintings in series that together build a narrative. I’m very
interested in that which defies depiction and making work with a very unfixed
subjectivity. I draw as a journal and as a space of healing. I work very
quickly and intuitively, in short sessions. The drawings then set the stage for
painting. My imagery comes from my memories near and far, dream events, my
experience being in nature, privacy from observation, photos, or xeroxes of
photos of collected artworks and landscapes. I’m influenced by contemporary
feminist poetry and fiction which shares an interest in describing the
un-nameable emotions of the postcolonial condition, its problems of dislocation
and representation. The works made at MacDowell, a series of 96 drawings and a
single painting of a rainbow, are collectively titled "Filled with
Song.”
Portrait by Sam Richardson
