James Siena

"Drawing"

Pace Gallery

New York, 537 West 24th Street

“The work starts to do the thinking, in a way. The work generates more work. If you need ideas, look at the work. Sometimes I refer to the works as machines, you know. They are like static machines. When they are moving that means they are doing something to you.” — James Siena

New York-based artist James Siena’s intimate and meticulous and densely-hued works stem from specific algorithms and constraints the artist determines for each work. While the artist hand is slowly abandoning the artwork with burgeoning use of digital technologies in art, Siena relies on his repetitive and meditative manual practice. His intense determination and commitment to set of rules he imposes on himself results in mathematical precision embedded in his works on paper and sculptures. 

James Siena, Rulebreaker, 2016 Ink on paper and museum board © James SienaPhotograph by Kerry Ryan McFate Courtesy of Pace Gallery

Utilizing essential materials such as ink, enamel or gouache, Siena generates minimal and introspective visual assemblages, absorbing their viewers through hallucinatory effects. In his current exhibition Drawing at Pace Gallery, Siena introduces three new bodies of work, titled Manifolds, Wanderers, and Nihilisms, bringing together his three dimensional works with a series paper-based works. “The work starts to do the thinking, in a way. The work generates more work. If you need ideas, look at the work. Sometimes I refer to the works as machines, you know. They are like static machines. When they are moving that means they are doing something to you,” states the artist in an interview with Chris Martin on The Brooklyn Rail. 

On view through February 11, 2017