Sheryl Oring | Spirit of Independence

Artist Sheryl Oring joins Crystal Bridges and the Momentary as an Artist-in-Residence in 2026. Oring’s work is exhibited as part of America 250: Common Threads with works I Wish To Say and Spirit of Independence. In-gallery performances for Spirit of Independence will occur throughout the run of the exhibition, including the exhibition’s opening weekend, March 13-15, 2026. Watch Oring at work.

Sheryl Oring examines critical social issues through projects that incorporate old and new media to tell stories, examine public opinion and foster open exchange. Using tools typically employed by journalists (the camera, the typewriter, the pen, the interview and the archive) she builds on experience in her former profession to create installations, performances, prints, artist books, sculptures, and internet-based works that address themes of democracy, citizenship, free expression, first amendment rights, story-telling and activism through art.

Oring is a Creative Capital Fellow and has received grants from Franklin Furnace, New York Foundation for the Arts, the Puffin Foundation, and the North Carolina Council for the Arts. She has shown her work at the U.S. Pavilion of the Venice Architecture Biennale; Bryant Park in Manhattan; the Brooklyn Public Library; the Free Library of Philadelphia, the National Liberty Museum in Philadelphia; the Jewish Museum Berlin; and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. She has also presented work at Art in Odd Places in New York; the Art Prospect festival in St. Petersburg, Russia; Encuentro in Sao Paolo, Brazil; and the International Symposium on Electronic Art in Dubai.

She has completed public art commissions at the San Diego International Airport and at the Tampa International Airport. Collecting institutions include the Library of Congress; Museum of Modern Art; Tate Britain; Bibliothèque nationale de Luxembourg; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; La Jolla Athenaeum; Yale University; University of California, Irvine; and many other university libraries across the United States.