Sonia through her Bra

Inscriptions

Signed and dated, in graphite, lower left: Sonia Sheridan 1970's

Label

In the 1970s, Sonia Landy Sheridan was on the forefront of photographic manipulation. Fascinated by the relationship between art, science, and technology, she experimented with copiers and fax machines as avenues for artistic production rather than just as novel modes of communication. Sheridan became the first artist-in-residence for 3M Company and used their new technologies to distort her body. At the time, amidst the second-wave feminist movement, women struggled to achieve representation in the art world, especially in media that involved technology.

In Sonia through Her Bra, Sheridan uses a 3M VQC photocopier to capture her face, bra, and hands. She distorts her image, duplicating her hands and merging her face with the bra—a socially constructed symbol of femininity. How does Sheridan’s approach foreshadow the use of technology to manipulate images of our own bodies in the twenty-first century?

From the 2020 exhibition A Space for Dialogue 98, Vision 2020: What Do You See?, curated by Devon Mifflin '21, Levinson Intern for Campus Engagement

Exhibition History

The Art of Sonia Landy Sheridan, Owen Robertson Cheatham and Friends Galleries, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, October 10, 2009-January 3, 2010.

Vision 2020: What Do You See?, A Space for Dialogue 98, Devon D. Mifflin, Levinson Intern, Class of 2021, Alvin P. Gutman Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 11-March 1, 2020.

Publication History

Diane Kirkpatrick, Katherine Hart, Mary Flanagan, The Art of Sonia Landy Sheridan, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, University Press of New England, 2009, ill, Preface and Acknowledgements, p. 60, Cat. No. 94.

Devon D. Mifflin, A Space for Dialogue 98, Vision 2020, What Do You See?, Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2020.

Provenance

The artist, Hanover, New Hampshire; given to present collection, 2004.

Catalogue Raisonne

Sonia Landy Sheridan - Diane Kirkpatrick Hood Inventory List #569: 3M VQC: Sonia through her bra 1970s larger paper.

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