Fran Siegel

Los Angeles artist Fran Siegel makes drawings and installations that revisit the traditional concept of landscape. Based on extensive research in such fields as geography, geology, history, anthropology, and sociology, her compositions combine a variety of graphic modes-maps, diagrams, flow charts, photo transfer, tracing, collages, cutouts, architectural blueprints-to evoke the transformation of cities, movements of populations, and other topics highlighting the ever-changing nature of landscape. Terrain 3 Ostia is a collage drawing merging two historic cities. It combines a map of Rome, where Siegel had a residency at the American Academy in 2006, and the layout of Cuenca, Ecuador, where she represented the United States in the Biennial of 2007. Both sites are connected through the significance of their rivers, Rome's Tiber and Cuenca's Tomebamba. "Rivers are the life force and former trade route that snakes through and delineates each historical design," the artist wrote about this work. "Newer communities are shadowed by the ruins of Ostia, Rome's ancient port, which appears as a ghost."