Biography

[New Orleans, LA ::: b.1976]

SIDONIE VILLERE has a BFA in Ceramics from The Newcomb School of Art at Tulane University and an MFA in Ceramics from The University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. Her work has been exhibited across the United States and Europe and is in permanent collections of several museums including The New Orleans Museum of Art and The Ogden Museum of Southern Art, as well as Saks Fifth Avenue Department Stores in New York, Boston, Phoenix, San Francisco, Beverly Hills and Chicago.  She is in numerous private collections including Beth Rudin DeWoody, Roger Ogden, Galila Barzilaï-Hollander and Béatrice Laubscher.

Villere is a multi-faceted artist using self-preservation and its contradictions as a common theme in her work. As a sculptor, her ceramic works often use geology to shape metaphorical self-portraits. As a painter, her ethereal works use a multitude of mediums to achieve layering and subtle depth that produce a painterly effect but maintain a sculptural aesthetic.

She has had solo exhibitions in Miami, Nashville and New Orleans and been featured in numerous group exhibitions in Atlanta, Miami, New York and New Orleans. As a curator, she has organized national ceramic exhibitions in New Orleans and Portland, OR. Additionally, her large-scale works were featured in The P.1 Projects satellite exhibition at the Prospect.1 Biennial Welcome Center in 2008. Villere’s work is also included in the publication, 500 Ceramic Sculptures: Contemporary Practice, Singular Work, by Glen Brown, 2009. In 2011, her work was selected by collector/curator Beth Rudin DeWoody for the January White Sale, an international group exhibition in Chelsea and at Cynthia Volk Gallery New York during Asia Week. In 2015, Villere’s work was exhibited at the VOLTA11 Art Fair in Basel Switzerland, as well as, the Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans for Reverb, a survey of works marking the ten-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.  In 2016, Villere was featured in EXCHANGE, an international exhibition at Galerie Jochen Hempel, Berlin.  Her work has been featured in Architectural Digest, The New York Times and The Art Newspaper, The Times Picayune and The Tennessean.

STATEMENT   III

I believe our purpose is to connect. I also believe we cannot connect without being vulnerable. With my work I rely on contradictions spurred by self-preservation. Through my sculptures, this exploration visually relies on referencing human and geological processes; both giving surface and form to my emotional expressions. The pieces are born through revealing and concealing, intentionally and intuitively making the emotional physical. They are architectural versus geological, destroying versus repairing, protected versus exposed. Creating these self-portraits with three dimensional, abstract, ceramic sculptures and multi-media paintings I am able to edit these dichotomies so that the viewer is left with a minimal physicality and an overall mood.

CURRICULUM VITAE |||

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EDUCATION 
2001 - 2004     University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, New Bedford, MA  
                            MFA- Ceramics
1998 - 2000     Newcomb College of Tulane University, New Orleans, LA
                           BFA - Ceramics, Art History Minor
1996 - 1998     Louisiana State University Baton Rouge, LA
1997                  Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI

SELECTED COLLECTIONS
Ogden Museum of Southern Art
NOMA
Roger Ogden
Saks Fifth Avenue Department Stores
Beth Rudin DeWoody
Galila Barzilaï-Hollander
Béatrice Laubscher
The late Howard Barnett
James Mounger
Wendy and George Rodrigue
Louellen and Darryl Berger
Dr. Jonathan Lampert
Steve and Dana Hansel

SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2017    Interruption, Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, New Orleans, LA
2015    VOLTA11, Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, Basel, Switzerland                                              
2014    Preserve, Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, New Orleans, LA
2012    Adjust, Reynolds Ryan Gallery at Newman School, New Orleans, LA
2011    Wrapped, Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, New Orleans, LA
2010    Impressions: Solo Exhibition, Tinney Contemporary, Nashville, TN
2009    Camouflage, Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, New Orleans, LA
2008    Phenomena of Change: Solo Exhibition, Steve Martin Studios, Miami, FL
2007    Organic Intervention: Solo Exhibition, Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, New Orleans, LA
2005    Clay, A Compelling Expression, Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, New Orleans, LA
2004    Thesis Exhibition, UMass Dartmouth, New Bedford, MA

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2016    EXCHANGE, Galerie Jochen Hempel, Berlin
2014-2015       Guns in the Hands of Artists, Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, New Orleans, LA        
2013    Crescent City Connection, Dishman Museum, Beaumont, TX
2012    NOLA NOW Part II: Abstraction in Louisiana, Contemporary Art Center, New Orleans, LA
2011    White on White, Cynthia Volk Asian Art, New York, NY
2011    January White Sale, Loretta Howard Gallery, New York, NY
2009    Art Melt, Brunner Gallery, Shaw Center, Baton Rouge, LA
2008    P1 Projects, Hefler Building, New Orleans, LA


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