James Siena

James Siena (born October 28, 1957) is an American contemporary artist.

His art is typically created through a series of self-imposed constraints also sometimes referred to as visual algorithms —rules Siena decides on before sitting down to work.

In most of his work he establishes a basic unit and action and repeats it indefinitely.

While originally recognized for his paintings using enamel paints on aluminum plates, Siena has also become known for his drawings, prints, typed works on paper using vintage typewriters, and sculpture.

Sculptures have ranged from made with his own hands using common materials such as: toothpicks, bamboo skewers bound with string, and grape vines to his larger sculptures that have been realized in bronze and wood in partnership with the Walla Walla Foundry.

He is based in New York City.

James Siena was born in Oceanside, California in 1957 but lived and grew up in Washington D.C. until the age of 12, when his family moved to California in 1969.

He moved to New York in 1975 to attend Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts (B.F.A.) in 1979 from Cornell University.

Asked to name the teacher who most influenced him, Siena quickly cites Mary Croston, an after-school art instructor who taught him as a teenager.

Croston treated her young students as “real” artists, says Siena, introducing them to such tools as charcoal and graphite and coaching them in figure drawing.

“She just taught the basics; that was very influential,” he says of those classes in the “art hut” behind Croston's house in Stanford, California.

Siena also remembers being “very moved” by the late Peter Kahn, who taught the history of techniques at Cornell.

According to Siena, “He was a marvelous Renaissance man” who taught his students such skills as determining whether paper is archival quality and making ink out of toast crumbs and saliva.

When Siena opted to move to New York rather than attend graduate school after finishing his B.F.A. degree at Cornell University, he found plenty of mentors in the local art community.

He was impressed by the “very independent, visionary spirit” of Alan Saret, who took him to the scrap yard and taught him about working with metal.

Chuck Close helped him understand “very obvious stuff” like how to approach a relationship with a gallery (Close likened it to a “conversation”) and how to maximize earnings from day jobs to spend more time painting.

Before being able to become an artist full-time Siena supported himself as a frame maker.

Prior to becoming an established and recognized visual artist, James Siena was known for his performance art, which included singing and rapping with his now ex-wife Iris Rose and Chazz Dean.

Most notably he appeared on Cinemax's TV series Dangerous Film Club during the 1987 season of the show.

Siena started making abstract paintings with an aesthetic that sought inspiration from Artificial Intelligence (AI).

For years he has been investigating the imaginary space of programmers' source and patterns through paint.

At first glance the images could be labeled as decorative puzzles or labyrinths but there is a logic base for each painting.

The first volume includes Siena's complete paintings, sculptures, and gouaches from 1989 to the present and a large selection of early works.

Siena's first major solo show was held at the Brooklyn, NY gallery, Pierogi 2000 in 1996.

His first solo museum exhibition took place in 2003 at the San Francisco Art Institute Gallery.

Since then he's had numerous solo shows including at Gorney Bravin + Lee in New York, Daniel Weinberg Gallery in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and The Pace Gallery in New York.

His work has been featured in over 50 group exhibitions, including most notably the Whitney Museum of American Art's 2004 Whitney Biennial.

Siena has had work either reviewed or published in the following publications: Art in America, The New York Times, The New Yorker, ARTnews, The Art Newspaper, The Village Voice, New York Sun, San Francisco Chronicle and Art on Paper.

Siena also completed several artist-in-residency program, most notably at the Yaddo artist community (located in Saratoga Springs, New York) in 2004, and was elected a Member of the Board at Yaddo in 2008.

Siena also appeared on camera in the 2008 documentary film, Herb and Dorothy by Megumi Sasaki.

The film is about the long-time New York contemporary art collector couple, Herbert and Dorothy Vogel.

Rare among contemporary artists, Siena uses no assistants in the creation of his paintings and drawings.

In Patricia Phillips, chair of the Department of Art, Cornell University; letter of Siena's nomination for the 2009-10 Eissner Artist of the Year Award, she wrote:

"'James Siena is one of the most inventive, independent, focused and prolific artists working today. … Thirty years after he received his B.F.A. from Cornell, Siena has emerged as one of the art world's internationally respected leaders. … [He] balances the traditions of 20th–21st century abstraction with a maverick sensibility to craft salient, if speculative, insights on the contemporary world, and the intricate workings of human perception.'"

Siena has also played muse for other artists including being a subject for paintings and sculpture by Joe Fig and multiple works of art by Chuck Close.

In the winter of 2009, Siena was selected as the visual artist "Master Artist-in-Residence" at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida.

Siena is also a member of the faculty of the MFA Fine Arts department at the School of Visual Arts, and is listed as a mentor for the Master of Fine Arts(MFA) in Studio Art program at the University of the Arts (Philadelphia).

He completed a residence in October 2012 as the Arthur L. and Sheila Prensky Island Press Visiting Artist at Washington University in St. Louis.

In 2017, the James Siena Catalogue Raisonné, was published as a digital catalogue raisonné by Artifex Press, New York.