WK8-art conversations-Sienna Browne

Exhibit Information:
Artist: Sienna Browne
Exhibition: Product of the Pallet
Media: acrylic paint
Gallery: Black Umbrella Tattoo and Art Gallery
Website: https://www.siennabrowneart.com/
Instagram: @siennabrowneart

Sienna Browne is to graduate from the CSULB School of Drawing and Painting in May 2020. The art gallery that is soon to occur later this month is meant to act as a fundraiser for her next step in life and education, which is obtaining a teaching credential for art. She shared with us that she hopes to ignite a passion in students before they reach college to perhaps open them up to a skill they never knew they possessed. Browne’s style of work mostly reflects representational and abstract, more specifically surrealism and cubism. From high school until much recently, Browne’s work explores ideas of body dysmorphia and eating disorders.

This piece seems very simple at first glance, however sometimes less is more. In this case, the lines are generally very smooth, but not fine. They serve the purpose to create shading and different lighting, especially around the face area. The colors used in this consist of mainly pastels, but also nudes when concerning the facial features. In addition, many of the shapes are curved and circular, rather than having straight edges. Lastly, the texture seems smooth and soft.

Browne explained that this is one of many pieces that revolves around food on head portraits that were made during her high school years. She explained that these pieces convey her style, but not a concrete vision. Browne went on to describe that at first, she thought that these pieces were just fun and simple, since they each were meant to be puns, such as the sushi ‘rolling’ off the head. But years later, she soon came to address them as a reflection of her experiences she went through with an eating disorder. She explained her toxic relationship with food and how these pieces, and many other of her works, explored this theme. Furthermore, she conveyed that her use of brighter colors are meant to draw the viewer in, however the shapes and meaning behind the images confuse them, and create a dissonance in them. They wonder why theyre attracted to something so dark or conflicting.

Overall, the light and airy arura that was initially intended by Browne is very prevalent in the work and I could personally see the way it would draw in the viewer. However, after hearing of her experiences, it was not hard to dissect the piece and draw meaning from it in relation to the fact. For instance, the choice to place the food over the head instead of any other body part is obviously important, since it is directly placed over the subject’s head, looming over him and he glances up at it. The choice to only include to upper half of the face and no other body parts make it seem as though the subject physically cannot grasp at the food above him, and is forced to look and fantasize about it. In addition, the lack of facial expression makes it seem as if the subject is indifferent toward the food above him. Also, the background is notably empty, only a purple surface, no blue sky or clouds, or even restaurant in the back to set the scene, but instead a backdrop. This could possibly represent that food is the only thing on the man’s mind, no other notable distractions to think about, the only option is for the food to consume his mind. All of these work together to reflect and symbolize Browne’s eating disorder and toxic relationship with food, as she phrased. Browne is very brave to share this part of herself with us, with the world in her works of art, since it is definitely not something that is easy to talk about.