Cynthia is an award-winning studio and public artist, and arts educator. Cynthia received her MFA in Painting from the University of Illinois at Chicago and has exhibited studio work at Hyde Park Art Center, Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art and other galleries throughout Chicago. She fabricates public artwork in mosaics and laser-cut metal that transforms neglected spaces into beloved local landmarks in Edgewater, Pilsen, and other Chicago neighborhoods. She often works in collaboration, drawing images from the ideas and hopes of community members. She is a board member and artist with the Chicago Public Art Group, and she co-leads arts and literacy workshops with Habla: The Center for Language and Culture, in Merida, Mexico.
In her studio work Cynthia uses an X-acto knife to hand cut painted paper and Tyvek, building exquisite patterns of negative and positive shapes. She is inspired by creative, adaptive solutions to address climate change, and models of interdependence and resilience. Through the interplay of light and shadow, she creates poetic installations that speak to the fragility of ecosystems at risk, and the need for sanctuary and mutual aid in the human and natural world.
Cynthia would like to thank the Ragdale Foundation for the time and space to create work for this exhibition.