"I work toward a material synthesis in painting that questions conventional logics of assimilation and integration as a seamless process. Pigment, resin, bubbles, and dirt are but a few of the materials I accumulate on the surface to entice viewers to think about how ideals are represented in pictorial space." -- Sherwin Ovid
"I engage in a dynamic interplay of painted mixed media work as a platform for cross-pollinating ideas of value and cultural transmission. My curiosity is manifested in material choices that make reference to the décor of domestic space. I am particularly interested in hyper-visible and reflective forms imbued with psychic power within those spaces. I work toward a material synthesis in painting that questions conventional logics of assimilation and integration as a seamless process. Pigment, resin, bubbles, and dirt are but a few of the materials I accumulate on the surface to entice viewers to think about how ideals are represented in pictorial space.
Image samples of domestic spaces are assembled to yield a plethora of narrative possibilities. I invoke the prevalence of class aspiration specific to my personal history that fuses ornament and heirloom into conflicted sets of desire. Figures are often staged in close proximity to ornaments to evoke dreams of upward mobility in a postcolonial context. Black subjects are situated within an array of flat and modeled compositional elements that draw on formal systems of abstraction and classical portraiture. My surfaces are deliberately layered with a cumulative effect that deploys direct pours and collage techniques as the fluid dynamics of the paint beckons the viewer into a topology of undulating layers." -- Sherwin Ovid
Sherwin Ovid is an interdisciplinary artist who was born in Trinidad and later immigrated to Baytown, TX. He received a BFA from the School Art Institute of Chicago. He was a Lincoln Fellow in 2013 at the University of Illinois at Chicago where he received his Master’s of Fine Art. He currently teaches as an adjunct professor at Northwestern University Oakton Community College and Ovid has exhibited at Randy Alexander Gallery, Goldfinch Projects, Gallery 400, University of Wisconsin, Cleve Carney Art Gallery, Haitian American Museum of Chicago and Iceberg Projects in Evanston. He was published in New American Painters in 2016 as a noteworthy feature and currently resided in Chicago.
