UP AGAINST

source: mandragoras

The work I produce seeks to address relevant issues that affect the way in which we live our lives today. I begin with relationships and experiences in my everyday that I find confrontational or in need of examination. Through research, experimentation, and collaboration, I produce works addressing specific questions that extend into social, political, and global conversations. I am interested in developing communities through my work via collaboration, relevancy, and outreach.

The most dominant influence on my work is from my experience studying with and working as Studio Manager to artist Nick Cave. His commitment and generosity as a mentor is beyond words. I am constantly learning from him what it means to be an artist today.

As part time faculty at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the Fashion and Continuing Studies Department as well as teaching artist and consultant at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, I am offered the opportunity to discuss contemporary art with a general public of all ages and backgrounds. These conversations and reactions greatly influence the work I produce and the ways in which I seek to engage the audience.
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source: markmooregallery

Working in the mediums of sculpture, video, installation, assemblage, drawing, and performance, Cheryl Pope addresses issues of connectivity and identity that inform the way in which we live our lives today. She begins with relationships and experiences in her everyday life that she finds to be confrontational or in need of examination, and manipulates their innate tensions to coerce participation or engagement on the part of the viewer. Through research and experimentation, she produces work that poses specific questions about topical social, political, and global conversations. Her work flirts with the precarious and delicate, as well as the physical and psychological, eliciting a dialogue about the navigability of provocative situations and the internal struggles we undergo when striving for control. As a result, she is interested in developing communities through her work via collaboration, relevancy, and outreach that illustrate a collective and individual plight for assertive voice in light of social and political restraint.

Pope received her Masters in Design in 2010 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago — which was supported by a Full Tuition Merit Scholarship — and her Bachelors in Fine Arts from the same institute in 2003. She was the studio manager for artist Nick Cave, for whom she had worked since 2003. She credits him and his work as a great influence on her practice. In the past eight years, her work has been included in many group contexts, including venues in Chicago such as Evanston Art Center, Boomerang, Swimming Pool Projects, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, as well as The Morgan Conservatory in Cleveland. Her work is in the collections of Kathryn and Dan Mikesell, Miami, FL and Heather and Tony Podesta, Washington, D.C., among others. Pope lives and works in Chicago, IL.
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source: cherylpope

As Cheryl Pope’s sculptures focus on those physical movements that demonstrate a detachment between body and consciousness and show how the body expresses psychological situations the mind is not aware of or tries to hide, she demonstrates the interruption of another form of feedback loop: the one between conscious decision and movement of the body. Grind and Perspiration are presenting moments and movements familiar to performers too – but very much feared as well: they are those movements even a performer can’t control as the body directly reacts to the
circumstances. A feedback- loop is triggered, which the ego or the conscious mind is not able to influence or interrupt. Cheryl Pope’s performers in form of machines are presenting, strangely, those parts of our individuality which we can’t run like a machine. They look like independent mechanisms to us, but we know they are not, they part of our selves which we would like to be able to look at like machines, in order to get hold and control of them. By externalizing and objectifying our in-voluntary acts Cheryl Pope, indeed, creates performing sculptures which might look like scientific research set ups – but they do not reveal their reasons and goals. Performing in-voluntary acts they only apparently offer themselves to our study. Be sure, they will nevertheless keep their – and our- secrets.

 Cheryl Pope’s new show (In) Voluntary Acts is a display of emotions she experiences in her everyday life and relationships. Her sculpture pieces, the wall and teeth display the involuntary acts. They symbolize the involuntary actions that her body goes through subconsciously, such as grinding her teeth in her sleep. The voluntary actions are depicted in the Cheryl’s performances. One of her performance’s, Up against, involves the popping of water-filled balloons hanging from the ceiling with only her head. Upon witnessing the performance I realized that it is also an inner struggle that Cheryl is coming to terms with. She explains this as “clearing the air.” The other is the act of covering her mouth with one hand and slapping the other across her thigh. This intense display depicts the struggle within her. These pieces are tremendously self expressive, some pieces may even make the viewer uncomfortable during the duration of
watching. Cheryl Pope wasn’t sure what to expect from the crowds reactions this being her first time performing them live. She states, “ The reactions were so much more intense. Especially restraint. I learned the power of the body, and of the real.  I wanted to observe the response and I learned so much from what people are able to deal with and how they deal with those confronting moments.” Cheryl’s involuntary work is seen in her piece ‘Grind’ and ‘Perspire’. ‘Grind’ is a set of teeth that are powered by some mechanism that enable them to grind like one would do in their sleep. This motion is an uncontrollable action of the body in a sleeping state. The grinding of teeth in ones sleep dulls down the teeth progressively. I think that at this stage, the viewer is intended to feel uncomfortable in reaction to the repetitive act of the teeth grinding. Both the voluntary acts and involuntary acts displayed are successful in evoking a wide array of feelings in the viewer.