ARTIST STATEMENT:

The recent body of work is one which revolves around the awkward, disconnected, violent and loving relationships that exist between humans and the natural world. As a child I often displayed the inability to recognize the order and requirements of nature.  This disconnect is still evident in my life as I often mirror the same gestures of my adolescence.

  The figures are often references to historical figures, which I adopt while reading biographical accounts of when natural and human worlds collide.  I am interested in stories of expeditions in which assumed knowledge of conditions ultimately failed the members involved. 

  The figures and figurative references ultimatley serve as a vessel for self exploration.  I extrapolate stories from the lives of these references and interject my own experience of disconnect to create the myths of my life.  The inherit narratives are meant to circulate around a verceral moment experienced, not a sequential event.  The drawing line leads the way through the paintings, working to disect and restrict the figurative from the natural elements.  And also working to reveal a personal iconography.

BIOGRAPHY:

Ellen Siebers is currently a Master of Fine Arts candidate at the University of Iowa.  She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2008 and her Master of Arts from the University of Iowa in 2011.  Siebers was recently featured as Editor's Choice in the 87th issue of New American paintings, has exhibited in various group and solo exhibitions throughout the United States and works with Beta Pictoris Gallery in Birmingham, AL.  Siebers creates medium to large scale oil paintings along with a body of mixed-media works on paper.  She also creates one-of-a kind books through the Center for the Book at the University of Iowa. 

Gallery Gray presents:

a solo exhibition by Ellen Siebers