AMERICAN, b. 1957
James Siena is an American contemporary artist based in New York City. His art is typically created through a series of self-imposed constraints also sometimes referred to as visual algorithms —rules Siena decides on before sitting down to work. In most of his work he establishes a basic unit and action and repeats it indefinitely. Siena commented that, “at a certain point I wanted to make drawings and works that act as machines. The way they act as machines is you have to find your way into them and find your way out of them. As you undo the making of them they come to life.”