Penn State Altoona to exhibit artwork by Zoraye Cyrus

ALTOONA, Pa. — “Familiar Strands,” a body of work by Ivyside Juried Art Exhibition winner Zoraye Cyrus, will be on display from Sept. 12 through Oct. 24 in the McLanahan Gallery of the Misciagna Family Center for Performing Arts. The exhibition is free and open to the public.

Born in 1996 in Brooklyn, Cyrus received her B.F.A. in drawing and illustration from the University of Central Florida in 2019 and her M.F.A. in painting and drawing from Temple University in 2023. She was awarded the South Florida Cultural Consortium Visual and Media Artist Fellowship in 2021.

Cyrus is a multidisciplinary studio artist who utilizes personal experiences, family relationships, and her Afro-Caribbean American heritage, to delve into the intricate connections between belonging and identity. She uses vintage photographs, sourced from either personal collections or public archives, as the foundation for her drawings. She then selects additional images to integrate into the original composition in a collage-like fashion, drawing or printing them into the piece as though they were always part of the original work. She states, “Expanding the concept of portraiture to capture not just the present self but the entire tapestry of history, emotions, and experiences that shape the individual, I aim to present the multifaceted ways in which people from the diaspora can occupy space and showcase their inherent beauty.”

The galleries are open Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. For further information, call the Misciagna Family Center for Performing Arts at 814-949-5452.