John Siblik, Born 1965, Hinsdale, IL
Serves as Associate Professor of Art, School of Art and Design, Northern Illinois University
Previously, Director, School of Art and Design, Northern Illinois University.
Education
1988, B.F.A., B.S. Northern Illinois University,
1995, M.F. A., Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.
Collaborating with students and community members on and off campus, working with faculty, developing and installing environmental art projects collaboratively, creating community-based art projects and providing art programing, and getting involved with community projects.
Siblik lives in DeKalb, IL with Michel, and daughters Piper and Maret
Moving through the Landscape.
Nature and culture serve as translations of actual experience whether I am making conceptual sculptures in the landscape or in the gallery, drawings, paintings or prints. The reality of actual experience is a fragmented existence where meaning is ambiguous and relative at best. Our existence with images (non-objects) is both more than and less than actual experience where meaning is concerned.
Meaning comes out of translation
I reference relationships; starting with the individual and moving out in concentric rings effectively creating a community. The work addresses the processes of community, environment, emergence, and historical narrative. Through images, words, and drawings, a variety of “pre-formative acts” emerge. Many of my drawings present as if from a variety of series all together, but with the goal of poetic or lyrical gain. In most cases when we think of translations, we are either willing to accept that “meaning” has remained intact or argue that some meaning has been lost; consider that meaning is gained from a thoughtful translation, a re-framing of landscape.
The landscapes are about line
The sculptures, drawings, paintings, prints, images, documentation, and video find meaning in the idea of moving through the landscape. I think of the landscape in an active, physical sense. The landscape activates most of the metaphors that we live by. I make images about the patterns of human behavior and sometimes our deviation.