Gallery II | Opening September 29, 2026
Reception during ArtWalk
Artist Sydney McMath explores grief, memory, family, and reconciliation through bold abstract painting in Hard Conversations: Finding Peace Amid Changes, opening September 29 in Gallery II at Artists Collective | Spartanburg.
The exhibition features approximately 25 acrylic paintings on canvas created as McMath reflects on the complicated relationship she shared with her mother during the final decade of her life. Bright, dynamic and filled with movement, the works give visual form to emotions that can be difficult to articulate like love and frustration, distance and connection, anger, loss, understanding and, ultimately, the search for peace.
“My paintings are my way of expressing the range of emotions I felt in relating to her during that time and handling the fact that I have inherited a large portion of her personality, good and bad,” McMath says.
Her mother died from lung cancer in August 2024. In the years preceding her death, McMath watched as the mother she had known throughout her life became increasingly withdrawn, angry and isolated. Their relationship was never absent of love, she says, but it became strained beneath the weight of changes that were difficult for both of them to understand.
During the beginning of 2024, McMath began to recognize more of the mother she remembered.
“It was only until the beginning of the year she died that she began to return to who I knew and seemed to enjoy life again,” McMath says. “My hope with this exhibition is to honor her memory by having an honest dialogue with myself and my artwork to make sense of her transformation and heal from any misunderstandings we may have had over the years.”
That dialogue became the foundation for Hard Conversations.
Although McMath had been processing the experience mentally since her mother’s death, the paintings themselves have taken shape over the past several months. Rather than illustrating particular moments or telling viewers exactly what they should see, McMath has chosen abstraction as a way to leave space for individual interpretation.
Visitors can expect paintings characteristic of her broader body of work: bright, bold, abstract compositions with a strong sense of movement and energy.
“I want everyone to have their own interpretation of my work,” she says. “That is why I choose to deal with abstracts for most of my work, aside from just this show.”
That openness is particularly important to McMath because Hard Conversations is about more than one mother and daughter. She hopes viewers will recognize emotions and experiences from their own lives, particularly those who have struggled with complicated relationships with someone they love.
“I want viewers who might be dealing with difficult relationships to relate to this work and hopefully find some peace in knowing that someone else understands what they’re going through,” she says.
The exhibition is also, at its heart, an act of remembrance.
Throughout the difficult years McMath describes, her mother remained a creative person, continuing to make visual art as well as what McMath calls “masterpieces in the culinary arts.” Creating this exhibition has offered McMath a way to acknowledge the complexity of their final years together without allowing those years to overshadow a lifelong bond.
“I hope she can hear and see me somewhere beyond the veil,” McMath says, “and know that she was and will always be my best friend.”
About Sydney McMath
A native of the Washington, D.C., area, Sydney McMath says she has been an artist and musician for as long as she can remember. Creating, whether through her hands or her voice, has always been central to how she communicates and connects with others.
“I find that it’s a genuine expression of who I am as a person when I can share my emotions with others,” she says. “I always hope to find kindred spirits among my fellow humans when we share these things.”
McMath graduated from Converse College in 2004 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in studio art and a Bachelor of Arts in art history. Although her concentration was ceramics, painting has remained a constant throughout her artistic life.
In 2005, she worked with internationally renowned artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude on The Gates, the monumental public art installation in New York City’s Central Park. An experience she describes as a highlight of her artistic career.
McMath has exhibited work during her time at Converse College, in two galleries in New Orleans and in three previous exhibitions at Artists Collective | Spartanburg. She is also a full-time musician working between New Orleans and the Carolinas.
A member of Artists Collective | Spartanburg since its founding in 2009, McMath describes the Collective as both an important part of her own artistic life and an essential part of the region’s creative community.
“I love this place with my whole heart, and I am honored to be a member who is able to exhibit in this beautiful space,” she says. “Spartanburg is a better place because of ACS. This place is fundamental to the arts in the Upstate and truly lives out its mission statement.”
Hard Conversations: Finding Peace Amid Changes opens September 29, 2026, in Gallery II at Artists Collective | Spartanburg. A reception will be held during ArtWalk. Approximately 25 acrylic paintings on canvas will be featured, with works priced from $100 to $300.