dawn howkinson siebel
Artist Statement
We define ourselves by the stories we tell. They are our wisdom holders, our cultural glue. Collective stories form history; personal stories create identity. The root meaning of story is “to see, guard, show the way.” From the same source come “idea, guide, wisdom, wit and vision.” As time moves on, our stories and our understandings of them change. History itself is a pliable thing, revised regularly.
My work is about history, memory and perception. Old photographs of people are often merged with the painted image, infusing the “real” with the imagined. Other collaged elements have entered the paintings recently – from thrift store paintings to magazine images and placards – melding my work into the larger cultural landscape.
New larger paintings are explosively colorful, reveling in the beauty of the “rose-colored glasses” where all is well in the natural world and life can go on as it was with no significant consequences. Yet beneath the joyful color, I am painting the endangered. The seeds of destruction are planted in full sight. We live in paradox: chaos and order, stasis and change. The commentary is there, but oblique or even humorous. Interpretation is with the viewer. The clock keeps ticking.
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