In my paintings I use performative self-portraiture to examine the construction of images throughout art history. I’m interested in the dual roles of truth-telling and mythmaking within figuration. I am interested in the largely uncredited role which the artist’s model has played in the history of art, the depiction of women in the western figurative tradition, and the wider ubiquity of the trivialisation of feminine-perceived labour. I use my own body and the camera as instruments to magnify and distort the boundaries between what is real and what is the “work” of composition, lighting, and painterly flair. These private and domestic performances are processed first through a camera obscura, then a digital camera, and finally through painting. The resulting images are informed by a collage of digital residue, painterly mark-making, and muscle memory. Through inserting myself into the compositions I remain in control of both sides of the canvas. The subjects of these paintings are less representative of their classical references but more about grappling with the dichotomy of fact and fiction within the artist’s desire to create new realities and the desperation to represent their own.
Since graduating with a BA in Fine Art Painting from LSAD in 2020, Sian has exhibited nationally and internationally in solo shows, most recently with Hymn to Him at The Dock, Carrick-on-Shannon (2025) and has participated in notable group shows in Dublin, Belgium, Lismore, and London. She is
the recipient of the K+M Evans Painting Prize at the 2026 RHA Annual Exhibition and was shortlisted for the Hennessy Craig Award. In 2026 she was awarded a place on the inaugural Museum Plinth Project residency with The National Museum, supported by the Lab Gallery and Dublin City Arts Office. Sian's work has been supported by The Arts Council of Ireland and Limerick City and County Council's Arts Office. Her work has been profiled in the Irish Arts Review, Visual Artists Ireland Newsletter, The Guardian and The Art Newspaper.