EFA STUDIO PROGRAM: ALUMNI
Susan Siegel
My paintings are inspired by the grand tradition of 18th Century Rococo portraiture. Playing with the conventions of formal portraiture, I am interested in revealing the emotional truths that lie behind the artifice of portraits. My subjects, fantastical human-animal hybrids, wander a dreamy and pastoral world, like their Rococo forebears. By anthropomorphizing farm animals, I try to capture a vulnerability that is, while animal, still profoundly human. By blurring the lines between animal and human, I explore what traits and characteristics the one shares with the other. I seek a delicate balance between the opaque and the revealed form by bringing an image into focus while simultaneously dissolving it.
