sykes portfolio review
Tuesday, September 1, 2026 at 09:47PM You Wave Back
Exhibition statement by Camille Silverman
I think of this quote from the novel Pure Color by Sheila Heti often:
Midway through life the gods strip us. Take anything real that happens in the middle of life; decline of the body, the death of our friends, the loss of a job, a strong sense of time. All things are evidence that we are being stripped. The gods strip us of our parents, our ambitions, our friendships, our beauty. They strip some people more and others less. They strip us of whatever they need in order to see us more clearly.
The works that make up the proposal for You Wave Back were made during a time of isolation while care taking of both of my aging parents. I began making works that explored ideas of reaching out to everyone and everything. The materials I would bring back to the studio had a connection to a larger cosmology, often having a pattern or gesture that would suggest more of an infinite boundless quality. I know I am not interested in the history of the materials or the objects assigned utility but this idea of setting them free of all of that. It is through loved ones struggles with purpose and what it means to let go of a job, a house, belongings, even the ability to walk that I began looking at a new way of existing. I have this feeling I am working through the idea of freedom beyond function. I think it must be beautiful to get there but also a scary process.
About my paintings:
My paintings are often unstable or uncertain and this is by design. I have found color through meditation (eyes closed) and I have tried to capture its most malleable and ever-changing qualities. This has led to recordings of color combos observed during sits where I see the moving in and out of unnamable luminous color blossoms. I started getting a new sensitivity to how palettes were operating but didn’t really apply it to my own work until much later. The first time was when an intern at Riverside Arts Center (a suburb of Chicago) used shiny pedestal paint to patch nail holes on the matte white exhibition walls by accident. The white on white started interacting with an exhibiting artist’s black on white floating paper installation and it was just so exciting to see the phenomenon it created. The wall was suddenly just as activated as the black and white drawings. Back at the studio I was noticing how some parts of my paintings had glare from one angle to the next depending on where I was standing. This often bothered me in the past but now because of my meditation practice I could see how I could harness this and have colors move in and out as one moves about the painting. Pure color can operate in the same way. Color combinations can be indistinguishable and meld together depending on where the viewer is standing. Similar to sculpture, the work can change as one walks around the two dimensional work. This so continually surprising and satisfying. So as my mom tells me “what’s in the way is the way.” These things that have bothered me now captivate me and open me up. Everything seems to be waving back.
morning/evening color curious
acrylic paint on canvas
48x30x1.5 / 12x12x1.5 inches
2026
A hard worker (forever inprocess studio)wooden panels, thrift store reproduction painting, foam, rug samples, plastics and plastic tubing, brick, acrylic paint, paint sample cards, wood, cardboard, tape on easel
84x30x24 inches
2025-present
A hard worker (forever inprocess studio)
wooden panels, thrift store reproduction painting, foam, rug samples, plastics and plastic tubing, brick, acrylic paint, paint sample cards, wood, cardboard, tape on easel
84x30x24 inches
2025-present
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