Sylvia Schieber

I am an interdisciplinary artist weaving mask-making with storytelling to create a multimedia myth for the modern age. My work invites viewers into playful, transformative spaces while addressing questions of personal identity, collective humanity, and our relationship with the environment. Drawing on my experience with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), I created the Maske mythology to explore the disorder’s ritualistic nature. Like ancient creation myths and folktales which helped people make sense of a chaotic world, OCD rituals follow internal rules that feel deeply purposeful. My work asks: What will our rituals look like a thousand years from now, and what stories or practices will endure, evolve, or fade into forgotten relics?  

Informed by years as a freelance fashion designer and seamstress, my masks incorporate materials found in dressmaking and a tailor's approach to construction. A motley assortment of items like textiles, beads, filmstrips, sequins, guitar picks, hand-dyed yarns, and jewelry odds and ends can all be found in my work. I enjoy playing with the materials and am most satisfied when I can use them in unconventional ways. Through these materials, I merge craft and myth to create a world where disorder and healing, decay and renewal, ritual and play coexist.

Instagram: @maskemaiden