The XY Chromosome Project follows the career paths of Lynne Sachs and Mark Street. To follow this path is to trace a blueprint on devotion. Working both together and individually for the past 30 years, each artist has carved out their own niche without the obvious influences of being married. They part ways to be left alone to their own creations. It is the respect for the other's work that bonds them. Left alone, their work could not be more different. Lynne's work is cerebral and emotional. As seen in her full length films “Your Day is My Night” and “Tip of My Tongue”. She collages the art of storytelling by layering stunning visuals while swimming between reality and performance. Her films are remarkable. Mark is the experimental film hero, a pioneer in film manipulation, an encyclopedia in the world of experimental films. His film work is solely connected to what is possible in the organics of film manipulation. They celebrate experimentation in its truest form. Yet both come down on the same line when it matters most. The line of captivation which as any artist knows is the hardest to achieve.

In 2010, they created The XY Chromosome Project an umbrella for their collaborative ventures. Together they have produced an array of collaborative installations, performances, and two-dimensional art works. In addition to exhibiting their collages on the walls of the Court Tree Gallery, they will present movies, poetry and essays by themselves and other artists and writers throughout the month of May.

In 2017, Lynne embraced her life-long love of collage during an artist residency at Beta Local, an art center in San Juan, Puerto Rico dedicated to supporting and promoting aesthetic thought and practice. While there, Lynne worked with San Juan artists who shared images torn from magazines or newspapers, found in a drawer, a family album or in the trash -- personal, commercial and ephemeral objects. Lynne then proceeded to “collaborate” with these artists by integrating both the treasures and the trash from their lives into her collages.

“Morning Addition” is a series of collages Mark has been working on since 2015. He uses images from newspapers, old books, Farmers’ Almanacs, paper shooting targets and original photographs to create strange and uncanny combinations. What arrives on the doorstep and found on the street mixes together to distill quotidian ephemera down to an unanticipated broth.

Lynne Sachs (born August 10, 1961 in Memphis, Tennessee) is a media artist who makes films, collages, installations and web projects exploring the intricate relationship between personal observations and broader historical experiences. She is known for weaving together poetry, painting, politics and layered sound design. After graduating from Brown University, she moved to San Francisco where she was deeply inspired by the collages of Bruce Conner, who would later become her mentor, and by the ciné poems of Maya Deren. Sachs received Masters degrees from San Francisco State University and the San Francisco Art Institute. She studied with Trinh T. Minh-ha, George Kuchar and Barbara Hammer. As seen in “Your Day is My Night” and “Tip of My Tongue”, Sachs’s films embrace a collage sensibility to their very core. They weave together a fascination with form, performance and non-fiction. In the words of NYC artist Kelly Spivey, “Lynne allows her ‘characters’ to explore storytelling from various subjectivities, opening up a more authentic portrayal of being alive during a specific time, situation or place. We learn that to burrow down into our ability to imagine another’s pain or joy, and then to perform these as part of our own exploration for the camera, yields a deeper connection than if we’d simply ‘told the truth.’ Lynne’s work can best be epitomized by her interests in intimacy, collaboration and space.” Sachs’s work has been supported by the Guggenheim, Rockefeller and Jerome Foundations, NYSCA, Experimental Television Center and MacDowell Colony. Her films have screened at the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Tate Modern, Sundance Film Festival and New York Film Festival. Sachs teaches in the Art Department at Princeton University and lives in Brooklyn with filmmaker Mark Street. She is the sister of filmmaker Ira Sachs and author Dana Sachs.

Mark Street (born October 31, 1963 in Beloit Wisconsin) makes films ranging from abstract 16mm hand-manipulated pieces to feature-length improvised narratives. He is also a street photographer (both still and film/video) and some of his photographs are collected in the book 100 Sides of a Sphere (available from Printed Matter). Mark likes to work the surface of film to create rich visuals which he shapes in a very intuitive, personal way. Since he started making films in 1983 he’s always gone back to painting, bleaching and marking frames one-by-one; he’s exhilarated by this tactile relationship with film material. In 2015, he created the Celluloid Series, a collection of 20 variable size prints scanned from 35mm film that's been eroded by time and abrasive materials. He also have immersed myself in various communities and attempted to represent the tensions and resonances of those locales. “Hasta Nunca” (2012) is a feature-length improvised narrative film shot in Montevideo, Uruguay. “Oiltowns” (2017) is a documentary about the oilfields of Western North Dakota. In addition to presenting at film festivals (Sundance, New York, Sarajevo, Tribeca, San Francisco, London), Mark has also exhibited video installations in galleries, including Court Tree Collective’s “Still Here” (2014) and the New York Film-Makers’ Cooperative’s “A Train Ride Can Be a Tracking Shot” (2016) as well as at the School 33 Art Center in Baltimore. Mark has also had musicians accompany his films at various venues including Downtown Community Television (DCTV), Issue Project Room, Galapagos Art Center and Hallwalls. He teaches film and videomaking and is Program Director of the Visual Arts Department at Fordham University.