Seven Films by Paul Sietsema

Los Angeles-based artist Paul Sietsema (born 1968) compounds organic and artificial detritus in his artwork. Using photographs and other objects that reference specific bodies of knowledge as starting points for his carefully crafted drawings and sculptures, he then films these images and objects, arranging and comparing both the physical works and the ideas, information and knowledge associated with them. Through his multistep, multimedia approach, Sietsema explores what it means to make art today, amid the barrage of images and the telescoping of past, present and future that instant access to information seems to provide. His film projects are both a consideration of time and how we apprehend it and an effort to return significance to the activity of image-making in an age of digital immediacy. This slim, clothbound hardcover is the first publication on Sietsema’s film works, and includes stills from seven films accompanied by three curatorial essays.