Celebrating 160 years & beyond! - Moore College of Art and Design

Fall 2008
Anne Seidman
Photos by Candace diCarlo
“I begin by creating
relationships with paint until
something connects.”
There is a serenity and an intensity to
Anne Seidman, qualities reflected in her
studio and her aesthetic. Seidman has
converted a grown daughter’s bedroom
into a drawing studio, creating a second
studio space in the Queen Village
rowhouse where she’s lived for 22 years.
The other studio in the whitewashed
basement of the house is her painting
studio.“I get paint all over, I’m a dirty
painter,” Seidman explains. “For drawing,
I need a clean space.” Each studio is neat,
carefully arranged with large working
surfaces, supplies and works in progress.
“In the 70’s through early 90’s
my interest was mark making,” says
Seidman. “I was interested in developing
relationships between marks in a white
field. Now, I am equally interested in
complex fields that envelope forms––in
forms and their relationships as they
butt up against other forms. Sometimes
viewers see places or objects or
themes, but the paintings are only
about themselves.”
In his online journal, artist and writer
Steven Alexander recently reviewed
Seidman’s painting saying, “We can see,
imbedded in each surface, the intuitive
organic painting process taking place –
each action determining the direction
of the next. Also evident is a sort of
willful inventiveness, an experimental
attitude that compels Seidman to avoid
formulaic solutions, so each painting has
the freshness of a new breakthrough.”
Seidman’s panel paintings are
made using water-based acrylic and
gouache on 8-ply ragboard mounted on
wood. A matte and/or satin varnish is
applied when the work is finished to
protect the surface.
“Painting is difficult,” says Seidman.
“The process requires decisions that are
less clear. I begin by creating relationships
with paint until something
connects. I make immediate intuitive
decisions about the next move.
These decisions keep changing as I
move through the process. Most times
the work is layered with unresolved or
‘painted over’ ideas. I have been able
to utilize this history in the final
resolved work.”
“The process of drawing is very
different. Drawing starts and ends with a
clear idea. I have been utilizing modular
units of lines and blocks of color. I have always
been curious about revealing the irregular
form that occurs when the drawing
is uncontrolled by a ruled edge. I have become
fond of the individuality that is exposed
in each form. My drawings, in most
cases, are larger than my paintings.”
Seidman’s exhibition Touching, at
Schmidt-Dean Gallery this spring, was
followed with the announcement that she
had received a 2008 Pew Fellowship in the
Arts. She will use the grant to reduce her
teaching schedule in order to devote more
time to her work.
Seidman, professor of Graphic Design
at Moore College of Art & Design, started
teaching at Moore in 1986, after completing
an MA in 3D Computer Graphics
and Animation at Ohio State. Seidman
also holds a BFA from the Pennsylvania
Academy of the Fine Arts and an MFA
in painting from the University of
Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
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