Bio
My name is Sadie Bridger - artist, mother, daughter, wife, Caucasian, MFA graduate, Southerner, and resident of New York City.
The moment we name objects and individuals, perceptions arise. And boundaries follow, divisions that are entirely dependent upon the mind that creates them. Over time, these self-made gulfs enlarge and deepen, and the designations we use become increasingly rigid.
Coming of age in the rural South in the 1950s and 1960s, I observed vast gulfs between Blacks and whites, females and males, between the environment and humans, all existing side-by-side, together yet apart, lockstep in silence. These separations made me uncomfortable, and I never understood why we could not go inside each other’s world – go beyond the trivial, the mundane and the self.
Visual art became the medium through which I began to explore these themes and to question the dichotomies I perceived. Gulfs not only between the races, genders and the outside world, but within the genders, too, and between citizens of the North and South, between the educated and uneducated, the privileged and the poor, among the various classes and religions. Divisions between young and old, artist and viewer, separations society seemed to accept without question.
Although I observe these separations, my work ultimately examines the interconnectedness of all things. I seek to facilitate bridges across artificial boundaries, thereby allowing individuals to literally inhabit each other’s worlds. There we can expand our knowledge and engage in a more harmonious and intimate understanding of one other and see how all of us are inextricably intertwined.
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SELECTED GROUP SHOWS
2024 La Mama Galleria, “Every Woman Biennial,” New York, NY 2023 LiC-A, “To Darken, Lightly,” New York, NY 2023 Tate Modern, “Samosa Packet,” London, England 2023 Woman Made Gallery, “Woman Life Freedom,” Chicago, IL 2023 Sojourner Gallery, Inaugural Juried Exhibition, New York, NY 2022 Franklin Rawson Museum, “Samosa Packet,” San Juan, Argentina 2022 Centro Cultural La Moneda, “Samosa Packet,” Santiago, Chile 2021 Vestige Concept Gallery, “Primal Disposition,” Pittsburg, PA 2021 Victoria and Albert Museum, “Samosa Packet,” London, England 2021 Art Students League, “Remembering 9/11,” New York, NY 2021 Ethan Cohen Gallery, “Darkest Before Dawn: Art in a Time of Uncertainty,” Beacon, NY 2021 AHA Fine Art, “Summer Salon,” Long Island City, NY 2021 South Street Gallery, “Print Parade,” Greenport, NY
2020 Remarque Print Workshop, “Punching Marshmallows,” Albuquerque, NM
2020 Plaxall Gallery, “Drawing in a time of Social Distancing,” Long Island City, NY
2019 Southampton Arts Center, “Solar Impressions,” Southampton, NY
2013 Midwest Museum of American Art, Juried Regional, Elkhart, IN
2012 Midwest Museum of American Art, Juried Regional, Elkhart, IN
2007 Art Students League, “Mixed Media,” New York, NY
1996 Albert Einstein College of Medicine, “Women,” New York, NY
1994 Center for Creative Imaging, Digital Photography, Camden, ME
1993 Pyramid Arts Center, “VanGhost in the Machine,” Rochester, NY
1993 Arnot Art Museum, “Natural Instincts,” Photography, Elmira, NY
1991 Art Space, “Socio-Political Visions,” Raleigh, NC
1991 City Gallery of Contemporary Art, Photography, Raleigh, NC
1989 Lubbock Fine Arts Center, National Exhibition, Lubbock, TX
1988 Mint Museum Biennial, “Best Art of the Southeast,” Charlotte, NC
1988 Duke University/UNC Research on Women, Chapel Hill, NC
1988 Waterworks Visual Arts Center, Visiting artist, Salisbury, NC
1987 Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem, NC
1987 North Carolina Center for Creative Art, “Images,” Durham, NC
1986 Museum of York County, “Southern Visions,” York, SC
1985 Sawtooth Gallery, “National Aperture One,” Winston-Salem, NC
INTERACTIVE ART
2019 Plaxall Gallery, “Crashing The Party,” Long Island City, NY
2015 Outside the Whitney, “Imagination Series,” New York, NY
2013 Artpost, “We are the River,” Experiential Sculpture, South Bend, IN
2012 Lubeznik Center for the Arts, “Magical Sticks,” Michigan City, IN
2012 Southern Shore Art, “Recycled Releases,” Michigan City, IN
2011 Lubeznik Center for the Arts, “Double Cake,” Michigan City, IN
2006 W21 Gallery, “Releases 9/11/06,” Chelsea Community, New York, NY
2004 City Gallery, “Releases,” with Connie Pfeiffer, New Haven, CT
ONE PERSON SHOWS
1994 Pyramid Arts Center, “Inside the Cookroom,” Rochester, NY 1992 Native American Center, “Bolivia,” Pembroke, NC
1990 Salon Municipal des Artes, “Man/Nature,” Cochabamba, Bolivia
1989 Municipal Art Exhibition, “Portraits from Brazil,” Raleigh, NC
TRAVELING SHOWS
1992-2014 Partners of the Americas, U.S. cultural exchange
1987-1990 We the People National Exhibition, New York, NY
1987-1988 Southeastern Spectrum Henley Exhibition, NC
1986-1988 South Carolina Museum Touring Program, SC
EDUCATION
1995 Rochester Institute of Technology, MFA In Imaging Arts, summa cum laude, NY
1986 Maine Photographic Workshops, Studied with Mary Ellen Mark, ME
1984 North Carolina State University, Studied with Jerry N. Uelsmann, NC
1974 Appalachian State University, BS Education, cum laude
AWARDS
2019 Inspiration Plus, Southhampton, NY, Southampton Arts Center, Award
2013 Midwest Museum of Art, Best Printmaking, Elkhart, IN
1991 Association of Partners of the Americas, Art Travel, Washington, DC
1988 National Aperture Three, International Quality Award, Raleigh, NC
1988 Museum of York County, First Place Winner, York, SC
1987 Emerging Artist Grant, A.J. Fletcher Foundation, Raleigh, NC
PUBLICATIONS
1993 E.S.P.R.I.T., Rochester, NY
1991 Health Policy and the Disadvantaged, Duke University Press, NC
1990 Southern Exposure, Institute for Southern Studies, Durham, NC
1990 Southern Reader Magazine, Oxford, MS
1988 Art Quest Catalogue, Los Angeles, CA
1988 Artists’ Liaison, Venice, CA
1988 We the People: A Pictorial Celebration of America, New York, NY
WORK PUBLICATIONS
1988-1990 The Independent, Alternative Weekly Newspaper, Durham, NC
1984-1989 NC Museum of Art, Assorted Catalogues, Raleigh, NC