Sydney Vernon A'21

Sydney Vernon

Sydney Vernon A'21 has an exhibition, "Interior Lives," on view at Phillips@THEARC in Washington, DC through June 6. Featuring new and recent works that combine elements of painting, drawing, collage, and printmaking, this exhibition invites viewers into Sydney Vernon’s world. Since 2018, Vernon has been superimposing and altering personal family photographs with both real and imagined histories from Black American culture to explore the Black femme experience. After a period of researching and sketching, Vernon projects the images onto paper to create an underdrawing, silkscreens selected areas of patterns, then uses pastels and charcoal to render faces and other details. By reinterpreting the poses and postures of her family members in vintage photographs in her own style, Vernon blends memory and history in new forms.

Free / In-Person

Phillips@THEARC
1081 Mississippi Ave, SE
Washington, DC 20020

Hours: Wednesday & Thursday, 10 am-5 pm. No reservation required.

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.