Where: The MAC
1503 S. Ervay St. Dallas, TX 75215
When: September 11 – October 9. 2021
Opening Reception: Saturday, Sept. 11, 6-9
PM
(Dallas, August 2021) The Cedars Union is a fellow arts nonprofit and one of The MAC’s cultural neighbors in the Cedars. Located less than a quarter-mile away on South Ervay Street, Cedars Union provides resources such as tools, programs, and pro-bono services for creatives; artists of all mediums work side by side in the custom studios, creating a collaborative and supportive community. Both organizations are proud to present this exhibition and showcase the best of the arts in the Cedars neighborhood (often referred to as “The Artists’ District”).
Current Cedars Union studio artists participating in the show include Jessica Baldivieso, Catherine Cornelius, Elizabeth Hill, Jessica Hilvitz, Michelle Hinojosa, Lisa Horlander, Lori Maclean, Jas Mardis, Kristin Moore, Mari Pohlman, Cat Rigdon, Brantly Sheffield, Carolyn Sortor, Molly Margaret Sydnor, Kathryn Vestal, and Phallon Lauderback Wright.
This grouping of artists represents a myriad of artistic practice including but not limited to painting, ceramics, sculpture, photography, and video. Curated by MAC Board President Jordan Roth, this collection consists of the newest works by the artists in the Cedars Union Cohort 2.
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ABOUT THE ARTISTS
JESSICA BALDIVIESO: Jessica Baldivieso was born in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia 1991. She received both a BS in Architecture (2014) and a BA in Art Studio (2016) from the University of Arkansas. She had her first solo exhibition at MAC Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, Santa Cruz, Bolivia, 2019. Her work was selected to be part of the 21st International Visual Arts Biennial, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, 2020. Jessica is currently an artist in residence or cohort artist at the Cedars Union, Dallas, Texas.
CATHERINE CORNELIUS: Catherine Cornelius is a ceramic and mixed media artist. She graduated from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration. She began her art education in the early 90’s alongside working in the corporate world. A studio practice began in 2000 and in 2016 she retired from her company enabling her to fully focus on her art. Her art education includes Brookhaven College, the Craft Guild of Dallas, and Penland School of Crafts. She is currently a studio artist at The Cedars Union in Dallas, Texas.
ELIZABETH HILL: Elizabeth Hill is a Dallas-based artist whose body of work is centered around
experimentation with various surfaces and textures and is driven by intuitive process,
dimensional dialogs, and color theory. Hill graduated from the University of North Texas
in 2019 where she earned a B.F.A. in Studio Art with a concentration in Painting &
Drawing, as well as a double minor in Women’s & Gender Studies and Art History.
Her work has been shown throughout North Texas at galleries such as 500X, Ro2 Art,
Denton ARThaus, and Art Room. She made an appearance in the 2017 publication of
the North Texas Review, and she was recently featured in Voyage Dallas for their Local
Stories series. She is currently one of sixteen artists-in-residence at The Cedars Union.
JESSICA HILVITZ: Jessica Hilvitz received her BFA at Metropolitan State University of Denver with an emphasis in photography and a growing interest in feminist art. She now resides in Dallas Texas, creating artwork out of a studio provided by a non-profit arts incubator, The Cedars Union. Through photography, collage and casing resin, she creates work focusing on the feminine mystique. Hilvitz draws from visual vocabulary of womanhood taken from dated representations of the feminine. By adding her own hair and nails to the work, she emphasizes the abject and the ridiculous feminine ideals upheld in American culture. Her intent is to disrupt and satirize the accepted archetypes of women.
MICHELLE HINOJOSA: Michelle Hinojosa was born in Austin TX and received a dual BFA in Drawing & Painting and Art Education with a minor in Art History in 2018 from the University of North Texas. She is currently pursuing her MFA at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
LISA HORLANDER: Horlander is currently part of Cohort 2 with the Cedars Union in Dallas and will be showing with The Other Art Fair Dallas in the Fall of 2021. She participated in the prestigious Summer Residency Program at New York University in 2018 and has exhibited in exhibitions spanning Texas, most recently The Femme Abstract in Austin, Together at The MAC in Dallas, and her solo show inBEtweens at the Janette Kennedy Gallery in Dallas.
LORI MACLEAN: Lori Maclean, a Canadian born Texan completed her MFA at Texas Woman’s University in Denton. Her artwork is available for sale in the Dallas Design district, and on exhibit throughout the DFW area. Her online portfolio is www.LAM-graphicart.com. Search Lori Maclean Painting online to access all social sites.
JAS MARDIS: Jas Mardis is a fabric and leather artist. He is also a 2014 inductee to the Texas Literary Hall of Fame for a 30 year career of writing, poetry and editing. His work focuses on the fantastic African-American image and experience of the family story.
KRISTIN MOORE: Kristin, a born and raised Texan, completed her MFA at Otis College of Art & Design in Los Angeles in 2016. She was named one of Saatchi Art’s 20 Artists to Watch in 2020. Her paintings can be found in collections across the U.S. and Europe. Her work has been exhibited at The Other Art Fair in Dallas, with Jonathan Ferrara Gallery in New Orleans, Talon Gallery in Portland, and more. She has had solo exhibitions at The Bolsky Gallery in Los Angeles, St. Edward’s University in Austin, and Commerce Gallery in Lockhart.
MARI POHLMAN: Mari Pohlman is a Dallas-based artist, illustrator and muralist. She established her design brand, “marpohl” in 2017 and specializes in designing and painting large-scale public art projects in the Dallas area and beyond. A self-taught artist, Mari has a BA in accounting and pursued a business career for six years before becoming an artist full-time after a solo trip throughout Southeast Asia. During this trip she became inspired by the people, nature, culture, and surroundings of each place she visited, and returned with a stack of sketchbooks filled with watercolor and ink drawings that would serve as her first illustration portfolio.
CAT RIGDON: Cat Rigdon is a painter and fiber artist based in Dallas, Texas. She grew up on the island of Cyprus, before the Iraq War, the island has a strong folk art and naturalism culture which is reflected in Rigdon’s work. She graduated from Texas State University in 2014 and moved to Dallas as a Decorative Arts Junior Specialist and Cataloger for Heritage Auctions. She left the auction house after a serious head injury to pursue a studio based lifestyle. Her obsessively repetitive works deal with her continuous recovery from the brain injury, the mythology of growing up on Cyprus, and artifacts from being an auction catalogers.
BRANTLY SHEFFIELD: Brantly Sheffield is a Dallas based artist born October 18th, 1991. He grew up in Edmond, Oklahoma. In 2010 he moved to Kansas City Missouri to attend the Kansas City Art Institute. He graduated in 2014 with a BFA in illustration. In 2012 he studied abroad at the Studio Art College International in Florence Italy. He studied fresco painting and art history. Between 2013 and 2017 Brantly was represented by The Late Show art gallery in Kansas City Missouri. In 2015 he moved to Boston Massecuites to attend Boston University’s MFA painting program. He earned his MFA in 2017. He shows his work nationally in curated and juried group exhibitions. Brantly is currently an adjunct professor of art and resident artist at the Cedars Union incubator for the arts in Dallas Texas.
CAROLYN SORTOR: Carolyn Sortor uses video, relational strategies, and other media to explore and/or spoof dimensionality and systems. Her primary media have been digital or relational including stand-alone video works and collaborative social projects although sometimes also accompanied by installations, prints, and/or objects. Her work has been shown in New York, San Francisco, Houston, Dallas, Albuquerque, and elsewhere at venues including the Contemporary Art Museum of Houston, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Nasher Sculpture Center, the Meadows Museum, and the African American Museum of Dallas. She is a recipient of the Moss/Chumley Award and of the Dallas Observer Mastermind award as well as being named one of the Observer’s top “100 Dallas Creatives,” and her videos have won both juror and audience awards at festivals.
MOLLY MARGARET SYDNOR: Molly Margaret Sydnor (b. 1993) is a Dallas-based multidisciplinary fine artist with an eye for fiber. She received a BFA in Fiber from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2015. Originally brought to Dallas for a career in product development specializing in interiors and textile design, Sydnor has traded in her 6 year corporate career to creative marketing for nonprofits.
Molly is a biracial (black), queer identifying, woman whose self identity heavily influences her work. She was recently exhibited at The Fort Worth Community Art Center, and Sweet Tooth Hotel. In 2019, Sydnor completed a residency at Dallas’s Sunset Studios, and just finished up a artist-in-residence at Burke Mercantile in LA. She has had clients such as UT Southwestern, Imogen Heap, The Joule Hotel, Craft Yarn Council and Headington Companies. Molly art directs her own sustainable fashion design, murals, illustrations and graphics, as well as large installations such as Sweet Tooth Hotel and her up and coming install at Art Box South with Art Tooth Fort Worth. You can currently find her work at Neighborhood Store, Maestri Gallery, and The Little Gay Shop. She is working hard on producing new work during her year long residency with The Cedars Union.
KATHRYN VESTAL: Kathryn Vestal is a painter and printmaker based out of Dallas, Texas. After receiving her Associates of Art from Eastfield College, she went on to study drawing, painting, and printmaking at The University of Texas at Dallas, where she received her Bachelor’s of Fine Arts. In 2018, Kathryn won the Asel Art award for Painting from the 15th Annual Juried Exhibition, at SP/N Gallery in Richardson, Texas. In 2019, Kathryn created a collection of solo work for her student Honor’s thesis which was presented at the 16th Annual Juried Exhibition at SP/N Gallery. This led to a first solo exhibition at Plush Gallery, in Dallas, Texas, titled Kathryn Vestal: ADHD. The show focused on Kathryn’s work with abstracted self portrait making to focus on the inner struggles of creating artwork while having Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder or ADHD. Kathryn now continues to work on larger paintings and her prints while showing around the Dallas Area.
PHALLON LAUDERBACK WRIGHT: Phallon Wright is a Dallas based interdisciplinary artist and designer. While Wright found her calling in photography at a very young age, she allows herself the constant exploration of other mediums forms of creative expression. She views creative expression in all its varied forms as a radical way to heal, live, be, and work. Wright attended The University of Texas at Dallas, majoring in Interdisciplinary Studies with a focus on Behavioral Sciences and Visual and Literary Arts.
ABOUT THE MAC
In the summer of 2015, The MAC moved from its home of twenty years on McKinney Avenue to 1601 South Ervay St in the Cedars neighborhood. After over two years of adventurous programming in the unrenovated raw warehouse at 1601 South Ervay, The MAC opened our new exhibition space, on–campus at 1503 South Ervay St. The 2,500 sq.ft. facility is located at the corner of S. Ervay and Sullivan, next door to Ro2 Art.
The MAC is a nonprofit arts organization that stands as an advocate for creative freedom, presenting visual art in all its forms. It supports emerging to established local, regional and international artists by offering the opportunity for exhibition and experimentation and by providing a forum for critical dialogue.
ABOUT THE CEDARS UNION
The Cedars Union is a nonprofit art incubator that supports local artists through communal and private studio space, shared tools, and educational programming. In 2015 the organization was formed to create community work space and training opportunities for artists, featuring private and shared studio spaces with state-of-the-art facilities and tools.
The Boedeker, a historic 50,000 square foot building, was purchased for the project, but due to its renovation costs and scale, a proof-of-concept model was built in the space next door. This 7,000 sf test space, the Annex, opened in August 2018 and began fulfilling the CU mission of providing tools and studio space for 15 studios artists, along with public programming. In 2019, The CU expanded its offerings by creating a Community Membership for artists to access programs, shared work spaces and tools in the Annex without a personal studio. We welcomed a second cohort of studio artists into the Annex in Spring 2020 and our list of Community Members is ever-growing, with over 35 artists currently working from our space. Cohort 3 applications are now open with an October 2nd deadline.
The CU has a comprehensive approach to helping emerging artists become successful. Its facilities focus on the importance of space and community in an artist’s practice, with programs to equip emerging creatives with the business skills and acumen to thrive as a working artist. Learn more at cedarsunion.org.
All works will be on view September 11, 2021 – October 9, 2021. Please join us for the opening reception on Saturday, September 11, from 6-9 PM at The MAC located at 1503 S Ervay, Dallas, TX 75215. For more information, visit www.the-mac.org, or call Aisha Haider at 214.728.6776.