ANNE SIEMS Men
At David Lusk Gallery Nashville,Anne Siems shows MEN, a new body of work featuring tattooed figures expressing the fluidity of masculinity and male identity.
Choosing to paint men did not come naturally to Siems. In spite of painting young boys and girls wearing translucent Victorian clothing in earlier bodies of work, the older male body was an entirely new subject. She says, “I never had much interest in painting men. My last show “forced” me to paint male bodies as that show was portraying the sons (and daughters) of my friends. I was surprised how much I enjoyed painting these angular, muscular bodies, their sharp edges, protruding veins and hairiness. It felt natural to continue with the subject of painting an entire show of men.”
This show and your accompanying statement are a very frank, yet thoughtful, account of your experiences with men in your life. It’s refreshing to see your acknowledgement of the vulnerability and difficulty associated with traditional ideas of masculinity, even as someone who has not always had positive experiences with men. As you consider gender norms and the pressure that comes with maintaining those standards, how has your approach to painting people changed?
I have always had a love for painting children in particular as gender ambiguous.The women in my paintings prior to 2016, for example, were always pretty traditionally female.They wear the gender stereotypical garments, outfits and accessories.The children however were not so easily defined and at times were ungendered. Girls?/boys? wear ornately decorated garments, bejeweled, they are lavishly accessorized with ruffled shoes and collars, yet wearing frock and breeches.Androgyny has always had a special plays in my artistic expression. So truly, it hasn’t changed. What has never been my focus has been to paint men and include them in my joy of non-gender clarity.
Siems has been portraying tattooed figures for four years, inscribing bodies and faces with excerpts from poetry, mantras, imagery depicting rites of passage, and singular words to convey identity. Of these tattoos Siems says, “they are unapologetic and brave, political, even if not in a direct way.They are markers of the world we live in and this time that on so many levels feels right on the edge in many ways, both personal and general.They speak of shadow work, of exploring the dark sides of our psyche, but also of strength and hope.”
This work will be shown in the South, a region that encourages and expects a machismo and stoicism from men. Laws banning gender-affirming care for adults and children are going into effect here to maintain this suppression of emotion among men in order to perpetuate a traditional view and practice of masculinity. Each of your paintings softens the angular, sharp, hard edges of each man’s body, allowing their vulnerability to be expressed in spite of this expectation of toughness. How has this analysis of contemporary men, who are competing with traditional assumptions, served as a jumping off point for future bodies of work or helped you reflect on past paintings?
How this work will affect future work is still unknown to me - often it is not clear to me for years to come, until I can have overview over several years of paintings. Reflecting on past paintings I can only say that now I find it astounding that I had such little interest in painting men or male presenting people. I have relished every portrait in this body of work and am surely not done painting men. I am excited about what will evolve from here.
In this body of work, Siems employs acrylic on wood panel to paint much larger, full body images rich with texture and gloss. Elements of nature, androgynous or hyper feminine clothing, and delicate fine-line tattoos soften stern gazes, strong muscles, and abrasive poses.The inherent immediate attention and technique required of these media parallels Siems’instinctual emotional responses to depicting her subjects and portraying their struggles.The subjects struggle with traditional societal expectations of men as expressions of gender and sexual identity are simultaneously challenged and celebrated.
Nature - plants, animals, insects - plays an important role in softening your subjects - and has always been the throughline of your work. Rather than include fearsome bears or gigantic mountains, you paint tender mushrooms, delicate bees, and lively trees. How do these elements help you characterize and express your subjects?
I think nature, especially expressed, or represented in my paintings in their more delicate forms -be it hares, bees or bugs -although not exclusively - has been a way for me to express my own softness, my feeling into the world,as well as my awe for anything that moves into my awareness. I hope to move away from cliches at all times and bring focus to the vulnerability of all things living - trees, animals , humans.
Siems’figures are adorned with quotes associated with the modern mantra of “self-love,” a reaction to mental illness and a tactic suggested to patients by therapists. She juxtaposes uplifting statements such as “It’s a great thing just to be here at all,” “Open me in a way that allows silence,” and “Let embodied divinity be naked again” against the challenging, heavy imagery and thematic elements of the exhibition. Each figure has a set of unique tattoos and words, reminding us that we are in the realm of reflection of human experience and dealing with an individual struggle with mental illness as a group of viewers. With her subjects’distinctive portfolio of tattoos, Siems reaffirms that mental illness belongs to the individual while also being a shared experience.
Anne Siems was born and raised in Berlin and lives and works in Seattle. She attended the University of the South inTennessee under a Fulbright Scholarship and completed her MFAat the Hochschule der Kunste in Berlin. Her work has been shown in a myriad of exhibitions in galleries and institutions in NewYork, Berlin, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, Boston, Vancouver, San Francisco and LosAngeles, among other cities. Her work can be found in collections spanning the globe, such hasAmericanAirlines, Seattle;TheArkansasArt Center, Little Rock; BoiseArt Museum, Boise, ID; Harry Connick, Jr; Hallmark Collection, Kansas City, MO; Kemper Museum for ContemporaryArt & Design, Kansas City, MO; Lucy Liu; Microsoft, Redmond WA; Nestle USA, Glendale, CA; Nordstrom Corporation Stores, Seattle; and TacomaArt Museum,Tacoma, among others. Siems’is active in her studio and out, often working on multiple projects simultaneously.At any one time she is painting murals, leading workshops, and getting work together for her multiple galleries’inventories and art fair booths.