Anne Siems

The artist’s interest in botanical and anatomical forms and their hidden, mysterious qualities was a clear point of departure during Anne Siems’s residency at Aurobora. Though her image making suggests medieval Latinate scientific texts, her work, under closer examination, merely plays off that association. The artist’s approach is to visually offer a version of our relationship to the natural world and question our relationship to it.

Siems carefully drypointed  her plates with root-like forms, pod-like images, and cross-sections of internal organ-like shapes that are splayed open and printed onto subdued color fields.  Siems employed the sprinkling of mineral spirits to create an articulated, moldy surface to some of her prints; with others she applied an encaustic wax coating that encased and lent  a parchment-like quality to the composition.  Each monoprint passed several times through the press to add layers of drypoint and color tone so that her final suite of prints contains complex references underneath an antique patina.

AUROBORA PROJECT

August 1994

SELECTED COLLECTIONS

Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AK; American Airlines, Seattle, WA; Benziger Winery, Benziger Imagery Series, Sonoma, CA;  Boise Art Museum, Boise, ID; Bullivant Houser Bailey; Harry Connick, Jr.; Hallmark Collection, New York, NY; Irene Mahler Fine Art, Seattle, WA; Microsoft Collection, Redmond, WA; Mueller Design Inc.; Nestle USA, Glendale, CA; Nordstrom