Sydney Yeager

Sydney P. Yeager lives in Austin, Texas and works in her studio in nearby Elgin. She received a BFA, an MFA, and a BA, all from the University of Texas, Austin. Her work is presently represented by DBerman Gallery, Wimberley, by Holly Johnson Gallery, Dallas, and by McMurtrey Gallery, Houston. Her work is included in permanent collections of Austin Museum of Art, El Paso Museum of Art, Tyler Museum of Art, Art Museum of South Texas, American Airlines, Samsung, Neiman Marcus, and the Belo Collection, among others. In January 2005 Yeager was a visiting artist at the American Academy in Rome. Her visit there was funded by grants from Texas Commission on the Arts and a City of Austin Cultural Arts Grant.

During 2003-4, a ten year survey of Yeager’s work toured Texas, traveling to Arthouse in Austin, The Gallery at University of Texas, Arlington, Tyler Museum of Art, The Grace, Abilene, and The Galveston Arts Center. In 1996, Yeager had a solo exhibit at Austin Museum of Art titled Body/Language: Art in Process. This innovative exhibit included an open working studio space and on online email “q and a”. Also in 1996, Yeager was awarded a Mid America Arts Alliance Grant. Her work was included in New American Painting, 1995, 2001, and 2003 and 2008. Non profit spaces which have featured Yeager’s work include Women & Their Work, Austin, Blue Star Art Space, San Antonio, Glassel School , Houston, and D Arts Center for Visual Arts, Dallas. Yeager has taught at Austin Community College and Austin Museum of Art since 1989. She has also had visiting artist positions at Southwestern University, Georgetown, Texas State University, San Marcos, and University of Texas, Austin.

About Sydney Yeager’s Work:

I keep returning to a beautiful quotation which has become something of a touchstone for me. The quotation is from Italo Calvino’s book, Mr. Palomar, and is a description of a flock of blackbirds flying over Rome. The narrator describes the flock as a “…moving body composed of hundreds and hundreds of bodies, detached, but together forming a single object…something…that even in fluidity achieves a formal solidity of its own.”
This idea of independent parts coalescing into a whole, only to collapse again into singular units, is one that has interested me for many years. Inherent in this idea is a sense of continuity, but a continuity constantly threatened with disintegration. It also suggests a state of suspension, where hierarchy yields to endless associations and connections.
In addition to these conceptual interests are more concrete references. Some are from the world around me: geologic formations (specifically the unstable limestone walls so common in Central Texas), pixels, and atoms. Some are artistic references, including Italian mosaic, pointillism, process painting, and pattern and decoration.
These diverse influences hold in common the theme of fragmentation. The question is whether these fragments are nostalgic reminders of a past presence, or conversely, the beginnings of a new form. The answer is never clear, which is why I remain interested in the question.