Sydney Mason (b. 2002, OH)

Sydney is a practicing artist currently located in central Ohio. Her concentrations include conceptual work in sculpture and painting, alongside functional ceramics. She recently completed a BA in Studio Art at Cedarville University.

Artist Statement

Sydney’s practice is preoccupied with identity, relationships, love, and suffering, which she explores primarily through sculpture; her conceptual work aches to inspire greater consideration of our daily interactions and mundane tasks. She tends to work in materials that have a physical draw: textiles and ceramic pieces that one longs to touch; acknowledging that we are flesh and bones tethered to earth with hearts of complex emotion. Much of her work considers the universal human experience, mainly, the transcendentals—the innate longing for truth, beauty, and goodness—alongside the inevitability of suffering.  Sydney draws upon her family heritage, that of a midwest farm life, handmade quilts, and stewardship of the land, to inspire the visual and historical references in both her conceptual and functional work.

Her work in functional ceramics considers the individual and communal experience. Handmade pieces can speak to the heart's longings, enhancing the lonesome meal, and enriching meals taken in community. Sydney’s creative practice is often one of liturgy, as her mind endlessly tangles and untangles its beliefs, and through material, searches for the spaces in and between what Ecclesiastes names “eternity in the hearts of men” and the words of Genesis “from dust we came and to dust we will return.”