SIENA GILLANN PORTA

 

ARTIST BIO

Siena Gillann Porta, a native New Yorker, attended the Art Students League, the School of Visual Arts and the New School, earning a BS in Studio Arts, CUNY,  Brooklyn College studying with Philip Pearlstein, Lee Bonticou , Lois Dodd and Sylvia Stone. Her MFA is from The Pennsylvania State University (Full Fellowship,TA)

With solo and group exhibitions throughout the U.S. and abroad at galleries and museums, her university exhibitions include Notre Dame, Lehigh, Adelphi, Amherst, NJCU, Manhattanville, Fairleigh Dickinson and NYU. Public collections include The City of Hveragerdi, Iceland, St. Philip R.C. Church, Norwalk CT, The Hafnarborg Cultural Museum, Iceland and Fulbright Commission in Iceland,

As a Scenic Artist with USA Local 829 Porta painted and sculpted work for The Metropolitan Opera, Broadway and feature films She was an Adjunct Professor of Art at Ramapo College NJ, St. Thomas Aquinas and Bergen Community. Grants and residencies include: NYFA, USIA, NYSCA, Brisons Veor, Cornwall, England and Varmahlid Haus, Iceland. Reviews and essays include; “The Time of our Lives” catalog, for NYSWA Centennial, by Eleanor Heartney, Gallery & Studio Reviews, 2003 ,’05 and ‘25, The NY Times, Newsday, Gannet News and The New York Art Review; Represented in NYC by NOHO M55 Gallery,14 Sculptors Inc, The New York Society of Women Artists and The New York Artists Circle. Porta is a cancer survivor, 3nd degree Kimura Shukokai Karate blackbelt and married with three children.   

Group exhibitions include; Ceres Gallery, The Interchurch Center-Treasure Room Gallery, The Hammond Museum, The Taller Boricua Gallery, Carter Burden Gallery, The Brother Chapman Gallery - Iona College, Highbridge Park - Manhattan, Rockaway National Seashore, Prince Street Gallery, Blue Mountain Gallery, Leonia Sculpture Park, The Hudson Valley Museum, Salem Art Works, Jacob Riis National Park, the Lockwood-Matthews Mansion CT and Governors Island.

YouTube and Spotify recently posted, through the popular NAWA series ”Art in Conversation with Farrin” an interview; “Art in Conversation with Siena Gillann Porta”, May 2025. Porta also has an upcoming solo exhibition at NOHO M55 Gallery this Fall, 2025, titled “Showing Up – Acts of Witness”.


ARTIST STATEMENT

The imagery in my artwork, installation, drawing or painting, or sculpture is predominately theme-driven. Zen practice has shaped and informed my work for much of my adult life. More recently the art of Kimura Shukokai Karate has become a part of this narrative. Having survived breast cancer twice has brought karate images more prominently into my body of work because I became a practitioner myself; most recently earning a San Dan, (3rd degree BB).

The mechanics of anatomy and bodies in motion has always been a passionate interest of mine. Dancing and performing in a mime and ballet troupe and studying at The Martha Graham School in New York as a teenager developed my appreciation for the human body as an instrument of expression. In graduate school I was fortunate to be able to draw from cadavers at Hershey Medical College which advanced my academic understanding of body mechanics as an artist.

Utilizing contemporary media is an essential part of my vision.  Access to new materials and technology while working as a Scenic Artist (USA 829) significantly enlarged my media repertoire.

I always fall in love with my newest work and hope that it communicates powerfully to others. At its best I find creating artwork is discovery, sometimes frustration and always a place where linear time stops.