Siobhan McBride was born in Seoul and adopted to the U.S. as an infant. She grew up in Bayside, Queens and currently lives in Staten Island. She received her MFA from the University of Pennsylvania in 2005 and has received residency and grant support from LMCC’s Workspace Program, Jentel, the Vermont Studio Center, the Roswell Artist in Residence Program, Yaddo, Marble House Project, Sam and Adele Golden Artist Residency Program, and PSC CUNY. Her work has been exhibited at Standard Space, Tai Modern, DC Moore, NurtureArt, Roswell Museum and Art Center, and the University of Maine Museum of Art.
“The paintings present views of a place that is intimate and familiar, yet strange. It is airless, with sound tamped out. Shapes lock together, tectonically tense, creating a sense of anxiety and anticipation, only to slip past one another like playing cards. I want the scenes to feel full of potential energy, as if the space is prickly with static, charged with the anticipation of an encounter, or blushing in its aftermath. The paintings are descriptions of weird and quotidian experiences, things caught in the corner of my eye, and an attempt to conjure slippery memories. I hope the work is uneasy and suspenseful like the excitement of exploring a new place, and the thrill of knowing you are drifting back into a frightening dream.
In my estimation, the private rooms that I know the best, expand well beyond their concrete dimensions through the process of memory, daydream and distraction. Folded into their plain reality are past experiences both significant and trivial, mental rehearsals for future incidents, clutter and caches. The work aims to illuminate this uncanny phenomenon of domestic minutia unfolding into entire worlds.”