Sheri Crider is a sculptor, mixed-media artist, curator, and cultural strategist initiating conversations that center the experiences and healing of queer women directly impacted by the carceral system.
Crider’s impressively distinct and expansive portfolio is defined by her desire to prioritize solace, respite, magic, and belonging in her craft practice. Her works have included elaborate sculptures made from repurposed materials, urban industrial landscape paintings commenting on equity and accessibility, fictional video games created with the help of youth coders, immersive virtual reality installations, and more. To broaden the community’s participation in the creation of and connection to contemporary art, crider repurposed the iconic Southwestern restaurant Sanitary Tortilla Factory in 2015, transforming it into a “fifteen below-market-value studios, a twelve hundred square foot exhibition space, fabrication, and a funded artist residency”—actively re-envisioning art’s role in the lives of those impacted by Arizona’s criminal legal system and creating an accessible and equitable space.
Based in Albuquerque and raised in the suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona, crider’s work has been exhibited nationally with recent solo and important exhibitions at the University of New Mexico Art Museum,
University of Arizona Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe. In MutualArt’s press archive, sheri is featured in Artists Defend Human Dignity in the Face of Institutional Dehumanization (Hyperallergic 2021). Crider has been the recipient of grants and fellowships including the inaugural 2017 cohort of Right of Return Fellowship, the Andy Warhol Foundation, and the Art for Justice Fund. Her work has been reviewed in critically acclaimed periodicals including PBS Newshour, and other notable periodicals. She received a BFA in Ceramics and Queer Theory and went on to earn an MFA in Sculpture from the University of New Mexico.