Blakeney Sanford
ARTIST BIO
Blakeney Sanford (b. 1979, California) is a multimedia sculptor, photographer, and conceptual artist. Her work, in blue, explores the boundaries between natural and man-made environments: micro, macro, meta.
A lifetime spent in rural environments informs her practice. Her passion for the natural world, coupled with an affinity for discovery and innovation, has led to diverse bodies of work which incorporate industrial materials, large-scale land art, immersive sculpture, and conceptual processes.
Sanford studied studio art and mathematics as an undergraduate earning her BFA in Human Ecology and is otherwise self-taught. She has exhibited in museums and galleries internationally, most recently in Egypt’s Museum of Ancient Civilization, New York’s Oculus, and in the Cotswolds District of Western England.
PORTALS STATEMENT
The Portals series is an ever-expanding, environmental installation project that explores concepts of interconnectivity and transformation across time, space, cultures, and terrestrial landscapes.
The work itself is its own narrative. Using physical and digital elements, it tells a story, weaving together landscapes and regions, individuals and communities, all connected through a visual mantra: The Portal.
The project involves the physical siting of a Portal sculpture - an iconic, translucent blue, rectilinear form - in natural spaces throughout the world. Existing as both permanent and ephemeral pieces, each installation location is documented using multiple technologies including photography and videography. Work from the series is released in expanding dimensions: 2D archival imagery and Polaroid “Proof of Moment”, 3D sculptures in situ, and video work that lives, in perpetuity, on the blockchain.
The Portals project began in 2020 and in four years has appeared in over fifty locations around the world. As the physical installations continue to expand, the next phase of the project includes the development of data visualization models to illustrate the layered networks forming within each dimensional field.
As the series evolves, my hope is that The Portals, in their many forms, inspire a web of connection between the individual, the collective, the natural world, and the metaphysical beyond.
CURRICULUM VITAE
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RESIDENCIES
2021 Artist in Residence, Steeprock Artisans Guild, Placerville, CO
EXHIBITION RECORD
Permanent Installations
2019 “The Big Break” – The Playa District, 6080 Center Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90045
Selected Solo/Duo Exhibitions
2013 Sculpture by Blakeney Sanford, Paintings by David Vickery, Blum Gallery, Bar Harbor, ME
2012 The Shark Park Series, Hawthorn, Carpinteria, CA
2011 Blakeney Sanford: Shark Park Series and Small Sculptures, READY, Santa Barbara, CA
2010 Tidal Transformations, Elverhoj Museum of History and Art, Solvang, CA
2010 Installation, California Science Center, Los Angeles, CA
Selected Group Exhibitions
2024 Portal, Fresh Air Bienniel Sculpture Exhibition, Quenington, Cotswolds District, England
2024 UNHRD x Transient Labs, Oculus Center, New York, NY
2023 SPACE, Sullivan Goss Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
2023 The Portals: Bridging Dimensions, Nematic Gallery, Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA
2023 Portals, NCWCA Juried Exhibition, San Francisco, CA
2023 National Museum of Egyptian Civilization: Empower Her Art Forum, Cairo, Egypt
2023 Surreal Women, Sullivan Goss Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
2022 COP27 World Art Forum, Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt
2022 100 Grand, Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA
2022 Art + Architecture, Telluride Arts, Telluride, CO
2021 100 Grand, Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA
2021 Sanctuary, GraySpace Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
2019 The Long Game, Arts Fund Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
2018 100 Grand, Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA
2017 Women of Surfing, Huntington Beach Art Center, Huntington Beach, CA
2015 Off the Wall, Arts Fund Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
2015 100 Grand, Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA
2014 Small Craft Advisory, TCSB, Santa Barbara, CA
2014 100 Grand, Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA
2013 Big Splash, Arts Fund Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
2012 100 Grand, Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA
2012 The Funk Zone Charette Project, Arts Fund Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
2011 100 Grand, Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA
2011 Splash, Museum of Ventura County, Ventura, CA
2011 Splash, Carnegie Museum, Oxnard, CA
2011 Rogue Wave III, Anderson Art Collective, Carpinteria, CA
2011 Natural Anthem, TCSB, Santa Barbara, CA
2011 Where Creativity Takes Flight, Long Beach Museum of Art, CA
2010 100 Grand, Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA
2010 Where Oceans Converge, Long Beach Island Fnd. of the Arts and Sciences, Loveladies, NJ
2010 Rogue Wave II, Anderson Art Collective, Carpinteria, CA
2009 Surfing Heritage Foundation, San Clemente, CA
2009 Saltwater Palettes, The Studio of Phil Roberts, Costa Mesa, CA
2009 Rogue Wave, Anderson Art Collective, Carpinteria, CA
2009 RUMBLE Contemporary Art Fair, Santa Barbara, CA
2008 Ocean Vision, Santa Barbara, CA
2002 Instillation, Blum Gallery, Bar Harbor, ME