VANITAS
Siobhán Arnold & Meagan Shein (SIEN Collective)
March 16 to April 20 2019
Opening Reception:
Saturday, March 23rd 6-8pm
Gallery Hours: 12-6pm Tuesday-Sunday and by appointment
About the Exhibit:
SIEN Collective’s current project references Dutch still life painting and Memento Mori, transforming discarded plastic into objects of beauty, disquiet, and curiosity challenging the notion of what is valuable or precious in our world. Our latest series, Euphemisms, takes the form of oversized cyanotypes featuring a female figure leaping over a meticulously arranged still life. Influenced by Vanitas paintings, the still life is comprised of objects that depict both contemporary and historical slang terms for female genitalia. Language is powerful. Euphemisms render beautifully the idioms that may distance one from one’s body via dehumanizing and negative intent. The leaping figures represents the necessity of transcending this often demeaning language.
About the Artist:
SIEN Collective is the collaborative work of artists Meagan Shein and Siobhán Arnold. Our work mines mythology, archetypes, history, and fairy tale, employing the imagery of the natural and human world interchangeably. We articulate our position as women in our particular place in society and the physical world/environment. We are interested in challenging the existing narratives of dominance and submission within these worlds raising possibilities for alternative narratives, ones in which the silenced may speak and the oppressed may act. We seek to blur the lines between technology and the hand via a collaborative art making process. By transforming the hand drawn paper negative into cyanotype, and combining sewing, drawing, painting and photography into collaged works, we are creating a hybrid visual language, one that offers unexpected visual and tactile experiences. Our work is driven by our passion for aesthetics, our fascination with history, and our desire to question the role of the artist in our current cultural, environmental, and political moment.
Siobhán Arnold is a visual artist and educator living in San Diego, California. She works with photography, textiles, sculpture and installation. Her work has been exhibited widely including the Charles Wright Museum in Detroit MI, Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, Center on Contemporary Art in Seattle, WA; Sherry Frumkin Gallery in Los Angeles CA; SCA Contemporary Art in Albuquerque, NM, the Gallery Project in Toledo, OH, and San Diego Space 4 Art. Her work has been featured in several magazines including View Camera, Pacific San Diego, Encaustic Arts Magazine, Detour, the Portland Review, Orange Coast Weekly and reviewed in The Seattle Times and The Stranger. She received a BA in Art and Design from the University of Chicago and an MFA in Art Studio from University of California Santa Barbara.
Meagan Shein is an artist working with paper, ink and encaustic living in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She has shown nationally and internationally including the University of Michigan, the Maya Polsky Gallery in Chicago, Gallery Project, Ann Arbor and the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art in Grand Rapids, Ml; the Gallery Project, Toledo, OH, the Ann Arbor Arts Center, the Delaware Center for Contemporary Art in Wilmington, DE; Miller Block Gallery, Boston, MA; the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, and Staub(g*fzk!) in Zurich, Switzerland. Her work has been featured in Drawing Magazine and Encaustic Arts Magazine and reviewed in The New York Times and Time Out magazine. She received her MFA from Hunter College, MA in art history from Williams College, and BA with special honors from the University of Chicago where she met Siobhán Arnold 25 years ago.
Siobhán Arnold & Meagan Shein (SIEN Collective)
March 16 to April 20 2019
Opening Reception:
Saturday, March 23rd 6-8pm
Gallery Hours: 12-6pm Tuesday-Sunday and by appointment
About the Exhibit:
SIEN Collective’s current project references Dutch still life painting and Memento Mori, transforming discarded plastic into objects of beauty, disquiet, and curiosity challenging the notion of what is valuable or precious in our world. Our latest series, Euphemisms, takes the form of oversized cyanotypes featuring a female figure leaping over a meticulously arranged still life. Influenced by Vanitas paintings, the still life is comprised of objects that depict both contemporary and historical slang terms for female genitalia. Language is powerful. Euphemisms render beautifully the idioms that may distance one from one’s body via dehumanizing and negative intent. The leaping figures represents the necessity of transcending this often demeaning language.
About the Artist:
SIEN Collective is the collaborative work of artists Meagan Shein and Siobhán Arnold. Our work mines mythology, archetypes, history, and fairy tale, employing the imagery of the natural and human world interchangeably. We articulate our position as women in our particular place in society and the physical world/environment. We are interested in challenging the existing narratives of dominance and submission within these worlds raising possibilities for alternative narratives, ones in which the silenced may speak and the oppressed may act. We seek to blur the lines between technology and the hand via a collaborative art making process. By transforming the hand drawn paper negative into cyanotype, and combining sewing, drawing, painting and photography into collaged works, we are creating a hybrid visual language, one that offers unexpected visual and tactile experiences. Our work is driven by our passion for aesthetics, our fascination with history, and our desire to question the role of the artist in our current cultural, environmental, and political moment.
Siobhán Arnold is a visual artist and educator living in San Diego, California. She works with photography, textiles, sculpture and installation. Her work has been exhibited widely including the Charles Wright Museum in Detroit MI, Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, Center on Contemporary Art in Seattle, WA; Sherry Frumkin Gallery in Los Angeles CA; SCA Contemporary Art in Albuquerque, NM, the Gallery Project in Toledo, OH, and San Diego Space 4 Art. Her work has been featured in several magazines including View Camera, Pacific San Diego, Encaustic Arts Magazine, Detour, the Portland Review, Orange Coast Weekly and reviewed in The Seattle Times and The Stranger. She received a BA in Art and Design from the University of Chicago and an MFA in Art Studio from University of California Santa Barbara.
Meagan Shein is an artist working with paper, ink and encaustic living in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She has shown nationally and internationally including the University of Michigan, the Maya Polsky Gallery in Chicago, Gallery Project, Ann Arbor and the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art in Grand Rapids, Ml; the Gallery Project, Toledo, OH, the Ann Arbor Arts Center, the Delaware Center for Contemporary Art in Wilmington, DE; Miller Block Gallery, Boston, MA; the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, and Staub(g*fzk!) in Zurich, Switzerland. Her work has been featured in Drawing Magazine and Encaustic Arts Magazine and reviewed in The New York Times and Time Out magazine. She received her MFA from Hunter College, MA in art history from Williams College, and BA with special honors from the University of Chicago where she met Siobhán Arnold 25 years ago.
