Statement/Bio

Artists Statement
“I’m inviting you to experience the world through my eyes… ones that observe a highly symbolic universe with reality twisted up somewhere in between a metaphysical playground and a psychological minefield. My works are steeped in personal and universal significance, and they explore human relationships at a consistently impactful, sometimes inspirational, and often unnerving level. I have been in the past many things, and will be many more before my time is up… but always I am a filter simply attempting to record what is captured through my lenses. I hope you see what I do.” -Cyra

Bio
Cyra was born and raised in the isolated farmlands outside of Springfield, IL. Here she had her sisters, severe allergies, and a lot of books.  She began painting in her spare time in high school, though academically she pursued the arts of writing and singing. After studying technical writing, editing, and creative writing in college, she studied exposition, rhetorical theory and the depths of human destructiveness in graduate school. In 2002 she moved to Seattle and here, over the next decade, healed, poured her emotional processing into visual art, and developed her artistic voice. When it became necessary, she moved from abstract expressionism into figurative and realistic painting and from there into sculpture and public installations. In 2007 she began attending Burning Man and became involved in the larger arts community. Immersed in an atmosphere of responsibility, human connection and enthusiastic creativity, she found inspiration to begin working in blacksmithing and metal fabrication with an eye on developing public spaces. She began again to consider rhetorical psychology and perception and is currently developing methods for exploring these themes in various mixed and merged media.