Selby Sohn

Instagram: @selbysohn

Website: http://selbysohn.com

Bio: Selby Sohn is a Bay Area artist who creates objects and actions on the brink of utility. They have exhibited nationally, internationally, and in outer space. Right now, their work is on a NASA PACE-1 satellite orbiting Earth. They have also shown work at di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, Poetic Research Bureau, 2220 Arts, 500 Capp Street (David Ireland House), de Young Museum, A|AH|D Gallery at the University of Notre Dame, Dream Farm Commons, Liminal Space, Bass and Reiner in Minnesota Street Project, 4 Star Theater, NIAD Art Center, Berkeley Art Center, Root Division, The Backyard Plague, Wave Collective Space, Cone Shape Top, the Edouard de Merlier Gallery at Cypress College, Mini Mart, Flowers Art Gallery, Mercury 20 Gallery, The Faight Collective, The Search, Thee Stork Club, ATA Window Gallery, Developing Environments, F8, Mission Bowling Club, Daily Diver, Borderline Art Collective, On-Off Site, Pacific Art League, SOMArts, East Window in Boulder, Colorado, the City of Palo Alto Public Art Program, Fish Factory Art Space in Penryn, Cornwall, UK, and Supermarket in Stockholm, Sweden. Sohn curates a space called Your Mood Projects in Dogpatch, San Francisco, and their writing is published in KQED, Squarecylinder, The Racket Journal, Third Iris, Journal.fyi, and the LA Telephone Book.

Statement: In maybe the weirdest story of my life, I can’t stop drawing worms. When I first started drawing them, I was at Fish Factory Arts Space in Penryn, Cornwall, England. Camilla Stacy told me that a local artist, Georgia Gendell, is also into worms — so into them, in fact, that she took a worm to a paint store, got it scanned, and painted a barn worm-colored.* Georgia also runs the Falmouth Worm Charming Championship, where people dress up and play instruments to try to get worms to arise from the ground. It is a competition. I attended a Worm Charming with my friends Scamp and Jesse and we ended up on ITV, National British Television. At one point, Scamp told a news anchor that I had come from San Francisco to attend. She repeated, “YOU CAME ALL THE WAY FROM SAN FRANCISCO TO ATTEND A WORM CHARMING?” I said yes. She asked me why. I then proceeded to make up a bunch of facts about worms on National British Television. I blacked out and completely forget what I said, but at some point, she turned back to the camera and exclaimed, “WE WOULDN’T EXIST WITHOUT WORMS.” I must have been convincing. So yeah, anyway, I can’t stop drawing worms. *I met Georgia, and it was clarified that there two colors of worm from the paint store. One of the colors is very brown, and Georgia suspects that it is of the worm’s intestinal tract. So… the shade of worm poo.