Sherwin Ovid

Region: MFA Annual

Website: http://www.sherwinovid.com

City / State: Chicago, IL

My work takes the form of mixed-media paintings that reflect the dynamic interplay of materials and address cultural transmission across national boundaries. Visual composites of parlor interiors, Delftware, and depression and carnival glass are forged through material curiosity. Objects commonly found in domestic spaces are symbolic references to class aspiration, fusing ornament and heirloom into hybrid sites of desire. A mélange of narrative idioms underpins a diverse collection of poured skins, digitized images, textiles, and sculpted foam. A transnational vernacular is reflected in the paintings’ paradoxical display of inherited colonial histories and the cultural memory of black resistance. Applying a spectrum of transparent materials to dark grounds poses questions on the nuances of visibility and its operative reliance on and distinction within blackness. The porous designations of race, class, and cultural difference are central to this exploration of the enigmatic space between immigration and assimilation.