Sikkema Jenkins & Co. is pleased to present Down Side Up, a solo exhibition of new work by Sheila Hicks on view at the gallery from May 24 through July 6, 2018.

Down Side Up features a new series of large panels wrapped in strands of linen and acrylic yarns  created over the past two years by the artist in her Paris studio.  A number of these works were included in her recent survey show at the Centre Pompidou, Paris (2018), where they leaned against windows and were viewable from front and back, suggesting both painterly and sculptural forms.

Sheila Hicks (b.1934, Hastings, Nebraska) received BFA (1957) and MFA (1959) degrees from the Yale School of Art. Awarded a Fulbright scholarship to paint in Chile, she photographed indigenous weavers and archeological sites in the Andes beginning an investigation into fiber as an artistic medium that Hicks continues to this day.

Hicks’ first solo exhibitions took place at Galeria Antonio Souza, Mexico City (1961) and The Art Institute of Chicago (1963). In 2010, a major retrospective, Sheila Hicks: 50 Years, curated by Joan Simon, debuted at the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, Massachusetts and traveled to the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia and the Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina. Recent solo presentations include Foray into Chromatic Zones, at the Hayward Gallery in London (2015), a large-scale installation entitled Baôli in the Grande Rotonde at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris (2014-15), and a survey exhibition at the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska (2016).  Hicks created a monumental installation for the 57th Venice Biennale, curated by Christine Macel (2017). This year, Hicks’ work was the subject of two museum survey exhibitions: Lignes de Vie/Life Lines at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, curated by Michel Gauthier (2018), and Sheila Hicks – Free Threads, Textile and its Pre-Columbian Roots, 1954 – 2017 at Museo Amparo, Puebla (2018).

Hicks is the recipient of numerous awards including the Smithsonian Archives of American Art Medal (2010). She was named a Chevalier dans l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the government of France in 1987, and elevated to Officier in 1993. Additionally, she holds Honorary Doctorates from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts de Paris (2014) and the Rhode Island School of Design (1984). Her work is in the permanent collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Art Institute of Chicago; Tate Gallery, London; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Louis Vuitton Foundation, Paris; Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; Museo de Bellas Artes, Santiago, Chile; Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Jewish Museum, New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and Pérez Art Museum, Miami.