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Linda Carmella Sibio's work explores the psychological fault line between
external and internal reality drawing upon visual symbols and philosophy
as a base. Her work invites the collision between perception and experience.
It is modern urban guerrilla theater which combines bizarre and grotesque
iconography with a musical array of emotional notes which evoke a broad
spectrum of emotional experience. This work has resulted in discoveries
in vocalization techniques with voice extensions that correlate the psychological
with highly technical components of music. I has also been a source of discovery
for exercises in non-linear writing for performances. She combines the use
of high formal structure with improvisation which gives a picture of the
violent impulses within society and serves to both question and investigate
highly social material.
Her work addresses social themes such as homelessness, mental illness, drug
addiction, urban warfare, suicide, mass murder, religion and violence against
women. She chooses issues that represent the ghetto of society delving into
these subjects spiritually, intellectually and emotionally. She incorporates
theoretical knowledge of structures in psychological states with the exploratory
and improvisational processes of live theater so that she can explore the
influence and relationship of the artistic experience to pathology. In the
making of this work she draws upon her background and training in the visual
arts (painting, drawing, installation), theater (acing, commedia dell Arte),
and interdisciplinary art. She develops performance pieces which utilize
films, music (original), installation, kinetic sculpture, video, costumes,
masks, puppets and text. In performance she is interested in the raw power
of human emotional contact, the unpredictability of impulse and the combining
of forms to create a psychological environment that sucks the viewer in,
holds him/her hostage and releases them with a new point of view.
Her work is dense with multiple layers of images and texts. In the layering
of this work she has developed a vocabulary of language and multi-media
forms which service the development of conceptual ideas. These images start
as abstractions and develop into more concrete realities through the actualization
of the work. She juxtaposes realities that often contradict each other creating
a surrealistic tone. Common elements in her work include machines which
commit suicide, 21' structures made of steel, an apartment with walls that
move and talk, a haunted bed that goes from floor to ceiling and a pixalated
movie where raw meat crawls over her body devouring her flesh. Ms. Sibio
is breaking new ground combining strong installation and visual concepts
with live performance work. Museums may very well have to open their doors
to this type of work!
Ms. Sibio is the recipient of the Lannan Foundation grant, the Rockefeller
MAP Award, three Cultural Affairs grants from the City of Los Angeles, Brody
Art Award, three Art Matters Awards, a visual arts award from Artists Beyond
Disabilities, LACE Interarts Award and the Change Inc. Award. Her work has
been endorsed by such notable artists as Reza Abdoh and Rachel Rosenthal,
curator of the Walker Art Center - John Killacky, the Lannan Foundation,
Martha Wilson of Franklin Furnace, and Norman Frisch.
In addition to her solo work Ms. Sibio is founder, director and collaborator
with a group of mentally disabled artists with a history of homelessness
"Operation Hammer." The fabric of her work has included working
with marginalized groups since 1985. She holds workshops in skid row communities,
hospitals and prisons as part of her ongoing investigations into society
and how it works.
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