Maggie Siner

Maggie Siner

 Maggie Siner’s is a quiet voice in the contemporary art world yet her paintings are held dear for their enduring qualities: the perfect sense of the fleeting moment, exquisite clarity of light, bold gestural brushwork, delicately balanced structure, fine craftsmanship, and the captured moment of absolute recognition. Her subject matter ranges from the intimate (a handful of cherries), to the monumental (earth and sky), to whimsical combinations of objects, always evoking surprise and beauty.

Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Siner began her studies at the Art Students League of New York in 1968, graduated from Boston University (BFA) and American University (MFA) and has lived for extended periods in France, China and Italy. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and museums for over 30 years and is in hundreds of private collections around the world.

Siner’s work is classically derived yet contemporary. While freely handled and gestural, her paintings have a strong sense of underlying structure. She works exclusively from life, one of a diminishing number of artists who use direct visual perception to translate the human experience into material form. Her influences from Chinese painting are evident in her free and responsive brushwork. A master of paint, she is known for evocative portraits, luscious still-life arrangements, and a sparkling play of light and shadow emphasizing the momentary nature of vision and time.

Siner is also a devoted teacher who has influenced a generation of painters. She has been on the faculty of l’Institut Américain Universitaire and the Lacoste School of Art in France, a visiting professor at Xiamen University in China, artist in residence at the Savannah College of Art and Design, Dean of Faculty at the Washington Studio School and teaches many workshops around the country. She is a frequent guest artist and public speaker much appreciated for her revealing lectures on the internal workings of painting.

In 1976 she moved to France, taught painting and art history at European university programs and exhibited in Aix-en-Provence, Paris and Marseilles. She also studied medicine at the Faculté de Médecine in Marseilles, taught anatomy at Georgetown Medical School and completed facial reconstructions to assist law enforcement in the US. She is well known for her expertise in artistic anatomy and human movement. In 1991 she lectured in six major art academies in China, after which she spent a year teaching at Xiamen University and has returned several times. Since 2008 she has spent much time painting and exhibiting in Venice, Italy, enamored of that city’s ever-changing surfaces.