Bio
For centuries, Venus has been seen but not heard.
From Botticelli to billboard ads, the female form has been idealised, surveyed and weaponised in a culture dominated by the male gaze.
My work offers a counter-mythology, reimagining women’s place from muse to mythmaker. Through large-scale ink drawings and hand-painted signage, I ask what happens when women write their own stories. I work with found images of femininity, from the pin-up to the cover star, rewriting advertising messages to create new, progressive meanings.
I describe my practice as “a love letter to women, written in ink”, exploring desire and liberation through a contemporary feminist lens. I use paper for its ephemeral quality: like beauty, it is fragile and short-lived. It is also the language of advertising and billboards. My choice of smooth, glossy white paper draws on the visual language of Pop Art and commercial imagery. Walking a line between empowerment and exploitation, my subjects refuse to be reduced by the surfaces they inhabit.
Growing up as a South-Londoner in Sicily, I was fascinated by the burlesque of religion, the endless saints’ days and the enduring presence of the female deity. These influences continue to shape my work. From the sacred to the silver screen, the love goddess is reborn, consumerism is eroticised, and salvation is shrink-wrapped.
But behind the mythology is a darker reality. In the shadow of violence against women and girls, I am interested in what follows survival: the reclamation of joy, beauty and self-possession. Through movements like MeToo, a reckoning is happening, and I am painting what emerges from the ashes: women reclaiming the freedom to define themselves, and to let go of a shame that was never theirs to carry.
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Born in London in 1982, Siena Barnes has exhibited internationally, including Tokyo, Nashville and Berlin. Her work is held in private collections worldwide and the Tom of Finland archive. Since 2019, she has collaborated with the Japanese fashion label Hysteric Glamour and more recently, Agent Provocateur. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo and featured in Trebuchet Magazine, as well as on BBC Radio 4.
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“When life becomes unsatirisable, the smartest artists lean in rather than fall down. At first blush, Barnes’ illustrations are as logo-like and dexterously seductive as the forms they are critiquing… These are advertisements for sex and death, which is to say that they are like all other advertisements as viewed through the glasses from They Live.”
— Philippa Snow, Art Critic and Essayist (Artforum, ArtReview, Frieze)
Click here to read Philippa Snow’s essay
Bio
For centuries, Venus has been seen but not heard.
From Botticelli to billboard ads, the female form has been idealised, surveyed and weaponised in a culture dominated by the male gaze.
My work offers a counter-mythology, reimagining women’s place from muse to mythmaker. Through large-scale ink drawings and hand-painted signage, I ask what happens when women write their own stories. I work with found images of femininity, from the pin-up to the cover star, rewriting advertising messages to create new, progressive meanings.
I describe my practice as “a love letter to women, written in ink”, exploring desire and liberation through a contemporary feminist lens. I use paper for its ephemeral quality: like beauty, it is fragile and short-lived. It is also the language of advertising and billboards. My choice of smooth, glossy white paper draws on the visual language of Pop Art and commercial imagery. Walking a line between empowerment and exploitation, my subjects refuse to be reduced by the surfaces they inhabit.
Growing up as a South-Londoner in Sicily, I was fascinated by the burlesque of religion, the endless saints’ days and the enduring presence of the female deity. These influences continue to shape my work. From the sacred to the silver screen, the love goddess is reborn, consumerism is eroticised, and salvation is shrink-wrapped.
But behind the mythology is a darker reality. In the shadow of violence against women and girls, I am interested in what follows survival: the reclamation of joy, beauty and self-possession. Through movements like MeToo, a reckoning is happening, and I am painting what emerges from the ashes: women reclaiming the freedom to define themselves, and to let go of a shame that was never theirs to carry.
–
Born in London in 1982, Siena Barnes has exhibited internationally, including Tokyo, Nashville and Berlin. Her work is held in private collections worldwide and the Tom of Finland archive. Since 2019, she has collaborated with the Japanese fashion label Hysteric Glamour and more recently, Agent Provocateur. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo and featured in Trebuchet Magazine, as well as on BBC Radio 4.
–
“When life becomes unsatirisable, the smartest artists lean in rather than fall down. At first blush, Barnes’ illustrations are as logo-like and dexterously seductive as the forms they are critiquing… These are advertisements for sex and death, which is to say that they are like all other advertisements as viewed through the glasses from They Live.”
— Philippa Snow, Art Critic and Essayist (Artforum, ArtReview, Frieze)
Click here to read Philippa Snow’s essay