I identify my art practice in three key elements: experiencing space, materiality, and rethinking the context of space. I am interested in exploring the ideas of experiencing space in relation to psychological sensation that are involved in certain activities or in visual forms. This form of interaction reflects the structure or systems of contemporary world […]

I came of age as an artist and filmmaker with the punk movement in the late 70s, making Super 8 films of my friends and family and various local celebrities in Pittsburgh, PA. The countercultural impulses and progressive energies of that era continue to inform my work and method. Horror films, low-budget exploitation films, and […]

My work has always represented human situations through the use of anthropomorphic paintings. I discovered that once you break or distort paintings, they have a language of their own. Ashamed, A Broken Painting Makes a Reverence, and Homeless (1995-6) were the first broken paintings I made. I found it easier to express feelings of some […]

I am a performance-based visual artist and writer. My practice scrutinizes the context and reading of the pre-existing image, performance, film, subject, and the nature of the “exhibition” using improvisation, re-enactment, commingled materials, synchronization, research, collage, and forms of ambiguous self-analysis, the self-portrait, and a scrutiny of the “reference.”I operate within a framework led by […]

A contract of mutual self-delusion exists between the caller and phone sex operator. The caller imagines he is speaking to his most secret fantasy, and the operator willingly plays the part. A phone sex operator must be able to understand the caller’s wants. But more importantly, they must be able to decrypt the unspoken desires. […]

Although usually hairnets are viewed as something ordinary, functional, and familiar, a second glance at a hairnet reveals an object of beauty and oddness. The webs of hairnets are delicate pathways capable of securing and unraveling in equal measure, designed to serve the often opposite desires of freedom and control. Hairnets have been found in […]

Paul Sietsema is an artist deeply engaged in the act of looking. His ethereal drawings, sculptures, and films explore combinations of color, space, and movement through subjects spanning a broad geographic and temporal range. For his third and newest project, Figure 3 (2008), Sietsema takes as his inspiration the pre-colonial ethnographic objects found in various […]

Since its opening in 1959, the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Guggenheim building has served as an inspiration for invention, challenging artists and architects to react to its eccentric, organic design. The central void of the rotunda has elicited many unique responses over the years, which have been manifested in both site-specific solo shows and memorable exhibition […]

Prevalent throughout the domestic decorative arts, the tea cozy remains an oft-visited tradition for novices and seasoned practitioners alike. Knit, crocheted or quilted, the purpose of the object is two-fold: it functions as an insulator keeping the tea warm, and is also a decorative and creative expression of its maker. Extending its utility, artist Mary-Anne […]

Revolutions are sweet as long as discoveries are transformed into work, into days filled with this production of images, with writing, drawing, and collage, which are my three main, parallel techniques. However, ideas are often buried, like annotations jotted down in exercise books that have been put away, relegated to the attic or notes hidden […]