artist’s cv & bio

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS   (bold=solo shows)

2022     Better Angels: The Firefighters of 9/11, Museum of Friends, Walsenberg CO (upcoming)

2021     Better Angels: The Firefighters of 9/11, Corazon de Trinidad Creative District, Trinidad CO

2018     Wild at Heart, A.P.E. Ltd, Northampton MA

2018     Portraits: Wild at Heart, Mercury Gallery, Boulder CO

2017     Private Exhibitions, Santa Barbara CA & Houston TX

January-November/2016     Better Angels: The Firefighters of 9/11,  Wood Museum of Springfield History, Springfield MA

2015     Endangered, Western New England University, Springfield MA

2015     dECAde, Easthampton City Arts, Easthampton MA

2015     Pioneer Women, MAP Gallery, Easthampton MA

2014     Animalia: The Endangered, Hampden Gallery, UMASS, Amherst MA

2014     Unbound, Vol. IV, Artistree Gallery, Woodstock VT

2013     New England Collective IV, Galatea Fine Art, Boston MA

2013     Unbound, Vol. III, Artistree Gallery, Woodstock VT

2012     Serial Art, Easthampton City Arts, Easthampton MA

2012     Unbound, Vol. II, Artistree Art Center, Woodstock VT

2012      Amherst Biennial, 4 venues, Amherst MA

2012     Anniversary Invitational, Dairy Center for the Arts, Boulder CO

2012     Better Angels, Colorado Springs Fire Museum, Colorado Springs CO

2012     Better Angels, World Financial Center, New York NY

2012     Better Angels, San Angelo Museum of Fine Art, San Angelo TX

2012     Better Angels, CPSE Excellence Conference, Las Vegas NV

2012     Better Angels, Firehouse World, San Diego Convention Center, San Diego CA

2011     Better Angels, VCOS Conference, Clearwater FL

2011     Group Show, Submissions Gallery, Easthampton MA

2011     Better Angels, Rayburn House Office Building, Washington DC        

2011     Better Angels, World Burn Conference, Cincinnati Convention Center, Cincinnati OH

2011     Better Angels, Fire Rescue Int’l, Atlanta Convention Center, Atlanta GA

2011     Better Angels, Firehouse Expo, Baltimore Convention Center, Baltimore MD

2011     Better Angels, Maryland State Firemen’s Assn, Ocean City MD

2010     Members Show, Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild, Kleinart/James Art Center, Woodstock, NY

2009     Extinction, Denver Botanic Gardens, Denver CO

2009     The Ditch Project, Boulder Public Library, Boulder CO

2009     Everyone Loves a Train Wreck, Art Students League, Denver CO

2008     Whimsy Wonderland, Blink Gallery, Boulder CO

2007     Under the Circumstances, Blink Gallery, Boulder CO

2007     Colorado Masters, Sandy Carson Gallery, Denver CO

2007     The Weight of History, Old Firehouse Art Center, Longmont CO

2006     15th National Art Exhibition, No. Colorado Artist Assn, Loveland CO

2005     Biased Biographies, Regis University, Denver CO

2005     Group Show, Soke Annex, Denver CO

2004     Family Stories, Children’s Hospital, Denver CO

2004     Dawn Howkinson Siebel/Mixed Media Paintings, Soke Fine Art, Minturn CO

2004     Fringed, Old Firehouse Art Center, Longmont CO

2003     Painted Stories, Dairy Center for the Arts, Denver CO

2003     Art Alive, Soke Fine Art, Minturn CO

2003     Emerging Artists 2003 Invitational, Edge Gallery, Denver CO

2001     Art Triumphs, Boulder Public Library, Boulder CO

2000     Eye of the Beholder, Dairy Center for the Arts, Boulder CO

2000     Heart Throb, Women’s Art Center, Denver CO

1998     This is Not Ed, Mercury Gallery, Boulder CO

1998     Sign Language, Nat’l Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder CO

 

REPRESENTATION

Edition One Gallery, 729 Canyon Road, Santa Fe NM 87501    oneeditiongallery.com

 

HONORS, AWARDS & GRANTS

2022     US Department of State Art in Embassies program selectee for US Embassy in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo

2013          “Unbound, Vol. III,” Third Place, Artistree Gallery, Woodstock VT 2013

2011-12       Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance, Public Safety Officers’ Benefits program grant for 10-city national tour of Better Angels: The Firefighters of 9/11

2006           BCAA/Milash Representational Artist Award, Boulder CO, May 2006

2006           Northern Colorado Artist Association, 15th National Show, April 2006. “Fine Print” Award, Ft. Collins, CO, Juror: Dean Sobel, Director, Clyfford Still Museum

 

SELECTED COLLECTIONS

Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.

Kirkland & Ellis, Chicago IL

Children’s Hospital of Denver, Denver CO

Mark & Polly Addison, Boulder CO

Charles Townsend, Condé Nast, NYC

 

BIOGRAPHY

      Dawn Howkinson Siebel was born during a snowstorm in Lake County, Indiana, in November 1950. Trained in the theatre at Carnegie-Mellon, she moved to New York City in 1972 to be an actress, quickly earned a Broadway credit, and almost as quickly lost interest in the theater as a career. A class at the New School introduced her to batik and she fell in love immediately with its complexity and how it freed her to draw. This led to 12 years as a dyer, beginning with batik t-shirts she sold in craft fairs and ending with intricately dyed silk clothing using processes of her own design. She has a t-shirt in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution from the early days and in 1985 she sold her collection of one-of-a-kind silk kimonos to Bergdorf Goodman before embarking on a trip around the world.

       She put a set of watercolors in her backpack to have something to do and learn on that trip. Over the next 18 months, she fell in love with the medium, painting as she traveled. Watercolor was a perfect segue from dye. Both mediums are fluid, translucent and have white only as a negative space. Returning to New York, she painted at night with a day job in publishing for the next seven years.

      In 1994, she abandoned New York for Boulder, Colorado, and there, in a community of working artists, she finally found the nerve and inspiration to devote herself fully to art. Oil became her medium of choice in 1998 and over the next decade she developed a body of narrative work called Story Paintings, incorporating old family photographs. Concurrently, for almost 15 years, her base income came from painting faux finishes and murals.

      In 2010 she partnered with the National Fallen Firefighter’s Foundation and moved back to the east coast to realize her project, Better Angels: The Firefighters of 9/11, 343 oil portraits on burned blocks of wood. She completed the paintings while working with the NFFF on all other aspects of what became an 11-city two-year national tour. It continues to be exhibited, including what became a 10-month exhibit at the Springfield Museums in Springfield MA.

      She settled in Easthampton MA in 2012 and by 2013 was painting portraits of endangered species. The subject matter was a conscious choice. Compelled now to address environmental issues in her work, these portraits are an argument for the sentience and rights of her subjects. In 2015 she decided to meet all the animals and use only her own reference images. It was a practical decision that deepened her work in ways she had not imagined. She and her subjects have regarded one another. They have posed for their portraits.

      As a visual artist she is self-taught and always learning.

      In early 2022, Dawn moved to Santa Fe NM.