"Inti.mate," a solo exhibition by School of Visual Arts (SoVA) master of fine arts (MFA) student Sidney Mullis is on display through Sunday, Aug. 9, at Future Tenant Gallery in Pittsburgh. Investigating notions of gender and sexuality, the show presents invented animals’ mating rituals as well as some new objects and sculptures that are being shown for the first time.
"These pieces are intimating, or signaling, the desire to be intimate whether it is in the form of video projection or sculpture," said Mullis of her work. "Because, that is what “woman” is right? A friendly, inviting, warm and sexual gender." With these new works, Mullis attempts to infuse static objects with gesture/movement in space.
Mullis believe that she lives in a space where gender is culturally dictated for her and simultaneously conflated with her sexuality. As a means to understand pre-existing constructions of how woman is realized, and, furthermore, performed, she dons the guises of invented animals of various sexes and genders to build a domain of alternative biology and culture. The three overarching influences which shape her work are her German grandmother who was a seamstress, the men in her family with military backgrounds and her undergraduate studies at a school that originally opened in 1908 as an all-women’s college. While it is now a co-educational institution, Mullis said "the residue of this legacy remains."
Mullis is currently pursuing her MFA with a concentration in sculpture at SoVA. She received a bachelor of arts degree in studio art with honors at University of Mary Washington and graduated summa cum laude. She is the recipient of the Graham Fellowship and Melchers Gray Purchase Award. Her work has been exhibited in a number of locations including Berlin and Tokyo.
Text courtesy of Future Tenant Gallery.