Siena April Peterson

My artwork has allowed me to explore the feelings of disconnect of one’s physical identity from one’s battling inner self. It has enabled me to expand on the actuality of an identity, it’s physical versus internal form and the meaning it is assigned.
My exploration of form has led me to interpret the body beyond its physicality, therefore, challenging my own shifting feelings of self and belonging while being simultaneously present.

The ambiguity of identity has led me to question the intimacy of being and becoming within our bodies and what we choose to reveal and conceal. Using abstraction of form as a tool, my work suggests a sense of familiarity to the body but imposes a formal disconnect. I imply meaning to form by assigning order through repetition, symbolism, and extraction.

In order to challenge the viewers assumptions of meaning in a form—regarding its identity, sexuality and physicality, I compare the body to other physical forms, symbols and objects. This has allowed me to further explore my own identity as an individual who is physically female but identifies as gender non-conforming and bisexual.

My work resides at a threshold—the merging point of interiority and superficiality, intimate and grotesque. By relating the crudeness of the physical body to the delicacy of internal self, I explore the meaning of identity through form.

University Of Illinois at Chicago, Fall 2017- Spring 2019
Chicago, Illinois, Interdisciplinary Art Studies Major, Visual Arts Minor

Edgewood College, Fall/Spring, 2014-2015
Madison, Wisconsin, Art Education Major

Solo Exhibitions

2017-2018 Jazz and Art Series, Fulton Street Collective, Chicago, IL

Group Exhibitions

2019 TBA, Year End Show: Senior BFA Thesis Exhibition, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL
2018 Open Studios: Senior BFA Thesis Show, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL
2018 Collaborative Art Series Concurrence: Fever, Fulton Street Collective, Chicago, IL
2016 Layers: Fresh Press Exhibition Show, Figure One Gallery, Champagne-Urbana, IL
2015 Stream Gallery, Madison, WI