I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.

(From the summer day by Mary Oliver)

Franklin Parrasch Gallery is pleased to present Ellen Siebers: Bouquet, the gallery’s first solo exhibition with the artist (b. 1986, Madison, WI).

Ellen Siebers’ highly atmospheric, evocative paintings revel in the possibility of beauty and visual poetry and the capacity to depict a fleeting experience or sensation in each lived moment, transforming the quotidian into something extraordinary. Siebers’ interest is in not just the fundamentals of painting but the beauty of her earthly surroundings. As she has noted, “Observation gives way to the importance of each brush stroke, in devotion to process”.

Siebers’ jewel-like paintings are often descriptions of scenes from nature, whether historical, or from her known environment: the sky, grasses, trees, flowers, fruit, and bodies of water, witnessed on her daily walks near her studio in upstate New York. Memory plays a central role in the artist’s painting and process as she re-envisions archetypes within both imagined and observed spaces. Siebers has described her process as one which demands practice: looking and seeing-- two related but distinct acts-– all in anticipation of returning to the studio to develop and render her paintings.

“Daily walks are one of the biggest influences upon my work,” Siebers observes. “I soak in vibrational beauty but at the same time I am thinking about snapshots from recent memory. When I return to the studio, I try to concentrate on these experiences through painting and see what can emerge”.

Siebers chose the title for this exhibition by reflecting on the verb and gesture behind "bouquet," interpreted as the collecting of small meaningful objects and ephemera throughout the day: “I think about paintings in the same way, both in the making of a singular painting and in the curation of a body of work. The natural world, and season also has a big impact on what I make at any given time.”

Ellen Siebers lives and works in Hudson, NY. She received her BFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2008 and her MFA from the University of Iowa in 2012. Siebers was awarded the Elizabeth Greenshields Grant (2023), Vermont Studio Center Grant (2014), the University of Iowa Quarter-time Teaching Assistantship (2009-12), the Iowa Quarter-time Fellowship (2009), and the Mildred Pelzer Lynch Fellowship (2011-12). Her recent solo and group exhibitions include: parrasch heijnen (Los Angeles, CA); The Approach (London, UK); Dans les yeux D’Elsa (Paris, FR); Harper’s Gallery (East Hampton, NY); MARCH (New York, NY), among others. parrasch heijnen held the gallery’s first solo exhibition of Siebers’ work entitled “dream song”, in 2023. Ellen Siebers is represented by parrasch heijnen, Los Angeles.