Ellen Siebers

Region: Midwest

My recent work revolves around the awkward, disconnected, fleeting, and loving relationships that exist between the natural world and oneself. I investigate these relationships largely through two gestures: the act of carving and the act of framing. Carving as an attempt to physically imprint something human onto a natural object. Framing as an attempt to selectively identify an illusion or image while signifying its importance (and at the same time removing the viewer from the identified image).

The figurative references serve as vessels for self-exploration. The inherent narratives circulate around a visceral moment experienced, not a sequential event, and the drawing line leads the way through the paintings, dissecting and restricting the figurative, removing it from the natural elements. Flattened space and quick gesture are important in relation to the space or environment of memory or internal experience. Within my paintings, I extrapolate stories from works of nonfiction and then interject my experience of disconnect from the natural world to create the myths of my life.