Sydney Shen's (b. 1989, New Jersey) sculptures and installations walk the fine line between wonder and horror, and use motifs of the macabre and abject, especially those which test the limits of the body, to point toward bigger philosophical questions about what lies beyond human knowledge. Her recent solo exhibitions include Onion Master, New Museum, New York, 2019; as well as Every Good Boy Does Fine, Sophie Tappeiner, Vienna, 2019. Recent group exhibitions include Invisible-Exports (New York), Deitch Projects (New York), American Medium (New York). Upcoming exhibitions include Queens Museum (New York) and Gallery Vacancy (Shanghai).
Sydney is currently an artist-in-residence at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Workspace program. She received the Jerome Foundation’s Emerging Artist Fellowship, Queens Museum, Queens, NY, 2019 and the Queens Art Fund New Works Grant, Queens Council on the Arts, Queens, NY, 2018. She graduated from The Cooper Union in 2011.
Sydney's studio-adjacent projects include co-hosting the podcast 69 Favor Taste, which explores and reframes the consumption of Asian identities; co-authoring Perfume Area, a book of prose-poetry; and making fine jewelry under the pseudonym Gesualda.