Today we’d like to introduce you to Sierra Bush.
Sierra, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
My passion for art began as a child, starting as a way to entertain myself. I drew for amusement after finishing class assignments (or not doing them at all) and during church services, sketching layouts of the pulpits and anything else that caught my attention. My interests were in reflecting what I saw every day, including what I watched on television. I could watch hours of adult cartoons, comedies, and throwback movies because they always seem to make reality so exaggerated and hilarious.
my second year of college at Savannah State University, I had yet to declare my major. I sat with an advisor as she read off the lists of degrees, and one of the options was Art. I was visibly surprised to hear that there was such a thing as a degree in art, and based on my reaction, the advisor suggested I go into the Arts program. Thereafter, I began my exploration of fine arts and transferred to Georgia State University. During my process of getting my BFA in the drawing, painting, and printmaking program, I took a contemporary art history course, where I was introduced to Conceptual Art and Slacker Art. These styles inspire my current practice of the “Thinker’s Art.” In a sense, this validated a concept I was bouncing back and forth with of aesthetics vs. the idea.
We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
I design and make screen prints, drawings, and paintings on cloth, paper, vinyl, and objects. My work is focused around the imagery of American symbols and their influence in mass-produced images and themes. This focus is directly in relation to my interests in the specific ways businesses, and systems visually display their products and what each individual aspect of these advertisements imply. There are three categories that I section my work into PARAPHERNALIA, KETCHUP PACKETS, and EQUATIONS. The goal is to create discourse based on their arrangements. PARAPHERNALIA is an appropriation of advertisements, where the text, image, and color inserts different ways of presenting a universal theme. KETCHUP PACKETS is an interaction with the image of ketchup packets and various objects, ideas, or people. KETCHUP PACKETS equates the universal gathering of travel sauces in everyone’s glove compartments and kitchen drawers to the practice of habit and accumulation. EQUATIONS consist of conceptual screen prints of commodities separated by equation symbols in order to create a dialogue similar to solving a math problem. The process of taking away the context around the images allows for the weight of the commodity only to be based off the relationship the spectator has with it.
What do you think it takes to be successful as an artist?
Success will be when I have sustained a practice of making conceptual art that can create genuine dialogue. As well as succeeding at creating my own site-specific gallery space for presenting work rather than relying on the traditional gallery. I think it is necessary for artists to be passionate, innovative, and true to themselves in terms of creating work that resonates with them personally. It is essential for artists to take risks with their work and not feel pressured into creating something that’s already “successful” in the art’s market.
Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
For the most part, all of my work is available on my website, www.sierrabush.com, where I post shots of my pieces and their installations. For events, exhibitions, or works I will be selling, they can be found on my Instagram, @Thurrteen. I would love for people to share my work, come out to the shows, and talk about the pieces.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.sierrabush.com
- Email: sierrabush94@gmail.com
- Instagram: Thurrteen
Image Credit:
Personal Photo: Jarius Copeland
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