SULO BEE
sulo bee is a creature maker and worldbuilder exploring identity and a wistful yearning for the ethereal and intangible within their alternate reality $P4RKL3_FiLTH_CL0UD_NiN3. Their practice merges metalsmithing and ceramic techniques with the scientific process of electroforming, combining traditional making methods and technology. sulo holds an MFA in Studio Art from SUNY New Paltz and a BFA from Texas State University. sulo is a co-founder of Queer Metalsmiths and DUNGEONDWELLERcult!, an American art collective founded with rae richards and Jennifer Masley. Their curatorial work with DUNGEONDWELLERcult! includes FTW//NTJV in New York City (2025) and ERROR 404[sidequest] in Munich, Germany (2026)
In 2022, sulo was selected for the Emerging Artist Cohort with the American Craft Council and later received the Marzee Graduate Prize, which included an invitational residency in Belgium and an exhibition at Galerie Marzee. They completed the GEMZ Talent Programme with Current Obsession, culminating in an exhibition at the Nieuwe Instituut in the Netherlands (2023). sulo has spoken nationally most notably as the 2025 Keynote Speaker for the Material Topics Symposium at East Carolina University, presenting Worldbuilding: Queering the Process, and at institutions such as the Museum of Art and Design, the University of Louisiana and North Texas, and R&Company.
They have had solo exhibitions at Brooklyn Metal Works, Fried Fruit Gallery, and Contemporary Craft in Pittsburgh, and they have exhibited internationally with various collectives, galleries, and jewellery weeks in Budapest, New York, Germany, and France. sulo has been included in curated shows such as GARDEN (2025) and EXHUBERENCE (2022) with Sienna Patti Contemporary, OUT of the Jewelry Box curated by Barbara Paris-Gifford at the Museum of Art and Design in NYC, Objects: USA 2024 with R&Company, and Talente: Masters of the Future 2025 at the Handwerk & Design Fair in Munich, Germany. sulo recently completed a residency at the Museum of Art and Design in NYC and was awarded the 2025 Bavarian State Prize during Munich Jewellery Week.
In my work, sparkle and filth is built, gathered, and grown. It is embedded in the name of my self-made reality,SP4RKL3_FiLTH_CL0UD_NiN3. The materials I use embody this: druzy minerals, dirt, and synthetic fragments merge as copper forms skins through electroforming. The creatures I create carry the detritus they discover and assemble it into objects forming a realm equal parts sparkle and filth. Oscillating between real and otherworldly realms, they illuminate the surfaces they create, echoing across the realm they inhabit. Each creature carries this quality as they become corporeal through making. Their iridescence is seen and felt as they move through the materials and artifacts they build. In these liminal interactions, sparkle persists at the threshold between material and imagined, bridging worlds as the creatures move within our ethereal ecology.
As the work evolves, it anchors itself in an imagined realm while mining known realities. Sparkle persists in that movement, where remnants gather and transform, worlds overlap, and collected materials begin to take form as remnants of an in-between space.