U.S. Embassy Welcomes Art in Embassies Exchange Artist Sibylle Szaggars-Redford

Sibylle Szaggars-Redford
Sibylle Szaggars-Redford

PARAMARIBO— The U.S. Embassy in collaboration with the Bureau of Overseas Building Operation’s Art in Embassies program is pleased to announce the visit of U.S. artist Sibylle Szaggars-Redford to Suriname.  Ms. Szaggars-Redford has been commissioned to create a series of pieces for the new U.S. Embassy which will open this fall. From May 3 to 8, she will visit several indigenous communities in Suriname to learn more about their history, culture and way of life, which will be reflected in the artwork she ultimately creates.  Ms. Szaggars-Redford will also give a public presentation on May 5 during ReadyTex Art Gallery’s Thursday Night Feature.

Sibylle Szaggars-Redford is a German born Multimedia Environmental Artist. She has dedicated her life’s work to creating art informed by her spiritual consciousness of our connection to life, the land, and the world.  Szaggars-Redford’s inspirations stem from nature, ancient cultures such as the Hopi, the Moroccan, or as in her most recent work the monsoon rains in the New Mexican High Desert.

Ms. Szaggars-Redford’s work in Suriname will continue her collaboration with the rain that was first developed in the summer of 2010 when she began creating her “Rainfall” series. In this series Szaggars-Redford provides the paper with her abstract watercolor pigment compositions – she then waits for the monsoon rain in the New Mexican High Desert and places her work in these showers.

For five decades, Art in Embassies (AIE) has played a leading role in U.S. public diplomacy through a focused mission of vital cross-cultural dialogue and understanding through the visual arts and dynamic artist exchange. Today, AIE is a public-private partnership engaging over 20,000 participants globally, including artists, museums, galleries, universities, and private collectors, and encompasses over 200 venues in 189 countries.  Professional curators and registrars create and ship about 60 exhibitions per year, and since 2000, over 58 permanent collections have been installed in the Department’s diplomatic facilities throughout the world.

A full bio of Ms. Szaggars-Redford can be found here: http://goo.gl/PnvXpv.

For more information on Art in Embassies, visit http://art.state.gov.