Sidony O’Neal is an artist, designer, and writer based in Portland, OR. Recent solo shows include “Softmax Hard Hasp” (2024) at Et al., San Francisco; “The Pudding Butcher” (2023) at the Lewis Center for the Arts, Princeton, NJ; and “NOT TALKING UNTIL BAD COMPANY JOINS” (2023) at Dracula’s Revenge, New York.
High on my list of favorite used-book stores in the world. Whenever I go back home to Sacramento, I make sure to stop in—I always leave with something completely unexpected or unusual. Browsing their thoughtfully selected stacks has led to some new developments in the studio.
For a while I was allergic to the idea of frames with glazing. Thermal paste is a heat sink/transfer, used to keep computing hardware cool. Conceptually it connects the questions I ask myself around land, material, climate, and technology—as well as the production of pieces that require various mathematical and computational methods. Creating drawings with a wet greasy medium that doesn’t want to dry for several years gave me a nice motivation to consider glazing, and now I am obsessed with making frames.
Some of my research is aimed at making/understanding something I call high-speed ornaments—icons or symbols that are synthetic and durable enough to shape other objects, even out of their original contexts. For me there are several kinds of glyphs that fall under this category, but basically the fleuron—a cousin of the complicated fleur-de-lis—is a very old typographic element that can be used to mean “pause here.” Often found in liturgical texts, it is one of my favorite embellishments and appears in both my artworks and online communications.
This is a mathematical surface that is flat at the origin and has a negative curvature in all directions. I recently made a sculpture that includes an extruded and mirrored instance of the monkey saddle. Although I prefer the subtle and terrifically robust world of symbolic/ornamental/algebraic abstraction, there is an intimacy to simply materializing an object with hyperbolic mathematics at human scale that I can appreciate. And yes, you can sit in it.
I am notoriously bad at eating meat, but I love broths. I am very thankful for this Portland-based purveyor of the most delicious bone elixirs, which I either get from my visits to the farmers’ market nearly every weekend or have delivered to my studio. Brothy has the usual land-animal concoctions, but they also make a number of fish and season-specific blends that smack. Their website features a tasty image of chilled broth jelly in a martini glass and a still life with raw chicken feet.
I’m very into the history and design of sharp arms such as daggers, battle-axes, and swords. I have a growing collection of blades and a few favorite books on knife and melee weapons design—gifts from friends and family over many years. You know, the arts! Both visual and . . . martial? smh.
My go-to for all air travel. I have a music ritual for plane trips that includes a few other albums—mostly drill, minimalist jazz, and buzzy-spacey-spiritual sound compilations—but this one is a staple. I did just add a three-hour drum’n’bass mix that I usually reserve for the studio—maybe, for once, it will help me get work done while I fly 🫠
In February, guest curator Allie Tepper organized a deeply researched and beautifully nuanced show that celebrated the decades-long friendship and collaboration between these extraordinary artists. Me and my ace/bff, artist keyon gaskin, were invited to perform Senga’s choreography for the gorgeous bascule she made for the exhibition and, wow, my life will never be the same. Thank you, Senga <3.
I love deliberate, liberated, and authentic approaches to making. This project by Brooklyn-based artist Tajah Ellis easily parries fashion industry buzzwords (sustainability, upcycling) to defy market expectations. Her sourced and deconstructed garments, brilliantly alchemized, examine deeper philosophical and scientific aspects regarding color and materials. Ellis’s work always makes me reflect on the importance of embodiment and collectivity in empirical practices. Look for an opportunity to connect with OUTOFSEAM—buy the clothes, attend one of their natural-dye workshops. Any opportunity to swoon over Ellis’s vision is a truly special occasion!
Two incredible spaces in the Pacific Northwest. It’s highly likely that your favorite artist’s favorite artist is or knows someone who has worked with or adores PICA and/or Veronica. Bangers only.
