Sheridan Hines- Sculptor and Conversationalist 

I’m an artist from Dallas, Texas, and growing up in the South has deeply informed my worldview and the way I understand the systems, expectations, and silences that shape our lives. I received my BFA from the University of Texas at Dallas before taking a few years away from school to work as an artist assistant and continue developing my own practice within the Goldmark community in Dallas. I’m currently pursuing my MFA at Washington University in St. Louis.

My work began with a question: What makes people uncomfortable? I’m primarily a sculptor and conversationalist, and I use my work to open discussions around the things we are taught to hide, dismiss, or remain silent about. Initially, I explored my experiences navigating chronic illness, including thyroid disease, being immunocompromised, and endometriosis. I became interested in the discomfort people experience when discussing bodily functions, as well as the ways invisible illnesses are dismissed when there is no visible evidence of suffering. That exploration eventually turned inward, leading me to examine the domestic abuse and generational trauma within my own family, including my experiences of abuse at the hands of my father.

Three months after receiving my BFA, I experienced a sexual assault in which I was drugged and raped. Although I had already been exploring childhood trauma, this experience introduced a different kind of trauma, one that felt immediate and impossible to separate from my everyday life. It fundamentally changed how I navigate the world and how I understand the role of art. I began using my work to make visible a story that had been disbelieved, dismissed, and pushed aside. Sculpture became a way to reclaim space for experiences that are so often met with silence.

My practice has since expanded beyond my personal experiences toward a broader examination of American culture and the structures that allow violence to persist. I’m interested in how rape culture, assault, incest, and abuse are minimized within individualistic mindsets that encourage us to treat these experiences as isolated incidents rather than systemic problems. Through unsettling forms, industrial materials, and biomatter, I create work that confronts what society would rather look away from.

Ultimately, I want my work to do more than tell my story. I want it to challenge the structures that make these stories possible, create space for difficult conversations, and give physical presence to experiences that are so often ignored. For me, discomfort is not something to avoid; it is a place where we can begin to question what we have been taught to accept.