Gideon Sawyer (b.1996) utilizes photography, video, and sculpture to explore questions of individuality. He uses fabric as a tool for representing his observations of ‘the self’ in public, in addition to being a therapeutic form of understanding his own relationship to identity. His process does not prioritize one medium over another, rather each medium plays a different, equally crucial role.

In 2022, Sawyer showed work from an ongoing project, Metamorphosis, at the Institute of Contemporary Art San Diego (ICA) and the California Center for the Arts Escondido. His showing at the ICA included a live performance centered on ideas of restriction and resolution. Sawyer received the Special Juror’s Award in 2021 for his photograph in ‘Spatial Relations in Nature’ and showed in the ‘Juried Showcase’ of 2022 and the ‘Spring Exhibition’ of 2020, all three of which took place at the University of San Diego. In 2019, Sawyer collaborated with Mossarat Qadeem to create a piece of work about the expression of ‘love’ in Isalm for the Women Peacemaker Project, hosted by the Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice.

Sawyer studied visual arts at the University of San Diego and graduated in 2022, the year after he completed the SURE Grant program.

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