What is intimacy? Cydney and Aura came together in Chicago last year and opened up to this vulnerable topic, sharing spaces and ways in which we understand this notion, and furthermore, how do we discover or acknowledge forms of intimacy in our daily life. WYLO’s exchange format is, in many ways, a call to create spaces of shared intimacy beyond common conceptions and misconceptions, to be equally vulnerable and strengthen by the presence of the other. During Cydney and Aura’s first conversation, both artists offered examples of how intimacy manifests in collective spaces: a shared glance, a silence, and even the emotional aperture brought by time, in a conversation that happen in a public setting or that is recorded for future dissemination.
From then on, they met virtually every week to explore this theme through the lenses of natural elements, such as the different stages of water, giving each other hints while exchanging thoughts. Cydney shared a vast range of materials and visual sources she uses in her work, and in turn Aura produced a series of sketches and ideas to react to key concepts that surfaced during the conversation. Each of these topics inspired a video performance that Aura created as a response to her interactions with Cydney and as means for embodying the knowledge and the connection created between them.
The notes, sketches and residues that Aura created as a result of the performances and the conversations are interspersed between Cydney’s work in the walls of the gallery at TSA Philadelphia. The five videos that came as a result of their exchange are equally surrounded by some of Cydney’s pieces. Their work, created in their own technique and media but as a reaction to their exchange, is a captivating example of how collective creation can take various shapes that go beyond the idea of a unified result. These bodies of work are decidedly dedicated to one another, but are also an opening of form, emotion and possibility that can be accessed and shared by any spectator by means of their own understanding of the ideas that shape Aura and Cydney’s practice.
Cydney Lewis
The Offering to Aura
2023
paper, oil paint, rhinestones,wood on Polyethylene Terephthalate
The Elixer
2023
paper,sand paper, rhinestones, fabric, oil paint on Polyethylene Terephthalate
Gardening My Mind
2023
paper, scouring pad, fabric on Polyethylene Terephthalate
My Cup Runneth Over
2023
Yarn, beads, wire, plastic, paper, rhinestones, oil paint on Polyethylene Terephthalate
Washed Ashore
2023
Paper, oil paint, sand paper, rhinestones, wood on Polyethylene Terephthalate
Flowing Downstream
2023
Paper, fabric, plastic, rhinestones, beads and chord on Polyethylene Terephthalate
.
.
Aura Arreola
2023
Water Every Day
Video, performance & sound art by Aura Arreola
From the instruction of Yoko Ono, shared by Cydney Lewis
2.21 min
Melting Together
Voice, sound, performance & video by Aura Arreola
1.56 min
1.Sand. From the instruction: two materialities around water
Video, performance & violin by Aura Arreola
1.29 min
2. Salt. From the instruction: two materialities around water
Voice, performance & video by Aura Arreola
3.47 min
Moving Through Cydney
Video: Fili 周 Gibbons
Movement: Qi Gong practice shared by Cydney Lewis
Performers: Aura & the riverSound art and edition: Aura Arreola
1.43 min
.
RELATED:
Visit Aura Arreola’s professional website here.
Visit Cydney M. Lewis’ professional website here.
.
Where You Left Off 