SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2018 Wild at Heart, A.P.E. Ltd, Northampton MA
2018 Portraits: Wild at Heart, Mercury Gallery, Boulder CO
2017 Private Exhibits, 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
HONORS, AWARDS & GRANTS
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 1950. Trained at Carnegie-Mellon, she moved to New York City in 1972 to be an actress, earned a Broadway credit, and lost interest in the theater as a career. A class at the New School introduced her to batik and she fell for its complexity and how it freed her to draw. This lead to 12 years as a dyer, beginning with batik t-shirts sold in craft fairs and ending with one-of-a-kind hand-colored silk clothing. She has a t-shirt in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution from the early days. A decade later she sold her collection of hand-painted silk kimonos to Bergdorf Goodman and embarked on an 18-month trip around the world with a set of watercolors in her backpack. She fell in love with watercolor.
In 1994, she abandoned New York for Boulder, Colorado, and there, in a community of many working artists, she finally found the gumption to devote herself fully to art. Oil became her medium of choice in 1998. In 2009, she began Better Angels, 343 oil portraits of the New York City firefighters who died on 9/11. Partnering with the National Fallen Firefighter’s Foundation, she moved back east in 2010 to complete the paintings and work on all other aspects of what became a national traveling exhibit. The project took three years, was profoundly instructive, and changed the arc of her future work.
Resettling in Easthampton, Massachusetts in 2012, she was determined her new work would somehow address the huge environmental challenges before us, a subject about which she has always been passionate. Slowly a new body of portraiture began to emerge, focusing on endangered species. In 2015 she decided to only paint animals she has met and only work from her own documentation. In retrospect, that was a profound decision.
For now, Dawn meets her subjects through extended visits to zoos who have the animals she paints. Some of the world’s most powerful animals are endangered. Her favorite subjects are elephants, rhinos, great apes and the big cats.
As a visual artist she is self-taught and always learning.