Susan Siegel

Region: Northeast

Website: http://susanlsiegel.com

City / State: Woodstock, NY

My paintings are inspired by the grand tradition of 18th-century Rococo portraiture. Playing with the conventions of formal portraiture, I try to reveal the emotional truths that lie behind the artifice of portraits. My subjects, fantastical human-animal hybrids, wander a dreamy and pastoral world, like their Rococo forebears. By anthropomorphizing animals, I try to capture a vulnerability that is, while animal, still profoundly human. By blurring the lines between animal and human, I try to explore what traits and characteristics the one shares with the other.