German-born artist Anne Siems brings her boldest work yet to Wally Workman in Austin, Texas, this July. Female figures with allegorical tattoos and shaved heads populate the visceral series of large format watercolor and acrylic paintings.

“I’m particularly pleased with their openness toward this body of work,” Siems says of the gallery’s response to her “out there” subject matter. While not a complete departure from her recent paintings utilizing tattooed text and botanical imagery, the show titled Inked, marks a doubling down on the artist’s distinctive style.Spring Awakening, acrylic on panel, 48 x 36"

“I’ve always really enjoyed detailed imagery based in medieval drawings and Indian miniatures,” says Siems. “So to create them in tattoos was such a fantastic outlet for me to tell a little story, have sort of a narrative.”

Earlier works included lines of poetry on models’ faces and clothing and a simplification of hair into color fields. Using models with shaved heads was a logical progression. “Now I have a whole new area to cover with poetry and signs and such,” she says.

Thanks to the pandemic era trend toward “anti-haircuts,” Siems found a muse in her daughter’s friend who had just shaved her head. “If I added hair to her beauty or to the faces that I paint, it would be almost too saccharine,” says Siems.Hawk, watercolor on paper, 24 x 18"

“It’s always been radical to shave your head,” Siems notes. “There’s a stigma still in our society—women’s bodies are supposed to be hairless, but they [need to] have a lion’s mane of hair.” Instead, Siems flips the script.

Works like Sin—a full figure watercolor featuring lines from mystic poet Chelan Harkin—emphasize Siems’ ability to push aesthetically pleasing work beyond face value. “In all of us, there’s a seed planted that wants to come to its fulfillment in a way,” says Siems, likening the poem to the gospel song “This Little Light of Mine.” To Siems, artmaking is about “drinking in the light” and working actively to combat “old shame and old ideas about how women should behave.”Sin, watercolor on paper, 40 x 38"

Wally Workman director Rachel Stephens says, “Anne Siems’ work is vulnerable and commanding. It communicates the depth of female experience, both individual and universal. Siems dove deep into the well and emerged with an ambitious hope that we are all fortunate to witness.”

Careful not to spell everything out for her viewers, Siems leaves room for the subconscious. “If it’s too blunt or too direct, why paint it?” she says. “The appeal of Anne’s work lies in the mystical quality she evokes,” says collector Jennifer Danvers. “They are at once delicate and savage; primitive and modern.”Artist Anne Siems' incorporation of tattoos in her portraits allows her to create a narrative.

Siems’ material choices reinforce the fragile balance. “The watercolors are great at portraying deep vulnerability and the sense of ephemera,” says Siems. They have an “immediacy to feeling because you can’t work over a mistake. It takes a lot of presence and focus to work on them.”

“What is seen is that which happened,” she continues. “It is closer to emotion. I want people to see the richness in something that’s so delicate.” —

Wally Workman Gallery
1202 W. Sixth Street • Austin, TX 78703 • (512) 472-7428
www.wallyworkmangallery.com 

Powered by Froala Editor