Amy Sillman

Amy Sillman engages with forms through her deliberately fractured perspective. The American artist has developed a distinctive style that merges abstraction with figuration. Her work is rooted in the language of modernist painting but also stems from a desire to challenge and break down art-historical notions of mastery and genius.

Sillman was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1955. Following various jobs that took her to Alaska and Chicago, as well as a brief vocation to become a Japanese interpreter for the United Nations, Sillman attended the School of Visual Arts in New York in the late 1970s. She quickly became involved in the feminist and countercultural movements that swept downtown New York during that period and began engaging with the area’s burgeoning artist community.

Sillman cites Abstract Expressionists, including Willem de Kooning and Philip Guston, as points of reference, but reinterprets these influences drawn from the history of abstraction, contemporary culture and the natural world. Her work is driven by a tactile, carnal approach to colour, in which the weight, density and character of each pigment is brought to bear upon its application.

‘Colour,’ she explains, ‘is a primary tool for negation in my work. My palette begins with everything I look at in the world: paintings, iPhone apps, cartoons, magazines, flowers, fashion, buildings, landscapes, books, movies.’

Known for her intellectual rigor and expansive interests, Sillman has explored a wide array of media, from traditional oil painting to animation and zine-making. Her work challenges conventional boundaries, often starting with figurative drawing before evolving into abstract forms, revealing her process of constant experimentation and revision. Faux Pas (2020), Sillman’s collection of writings and drawings, adds to her singular practice that challenges traditions and established frameworks in favour of subjectivity.

Amy Sillman has exhibited widely and internationally. Her works can be found in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, other major institutions.