Artist Statement

Paula Siwek is a visual alchemist, transforming photography, collage, and mixed media into evocative storytelling. Through hands-on workshops, she ignites creative instincts, urging participants to layer, explore, and break boundaries. plays with found imagery and existing text, revealing hidden narratives. She believes the most powerful photography isn’t just seen—it’s felt. Siwek is an artist in photography and mixed media. her work is elegant, experimental, and diverse, exploring themes of intimacy and the picturesque with an undertone of mystery and subtle discomfort. Her photographs evoke solitude and deep observation, inviting viewers into layered visual narratives.

While living in Brooklyn, she documented the streets of her neighborhood, its people, and Arthur Kill Correctional Facility in Staten Island. Collaborating with a poet who taught there, she created her first multimedia performance about incarceration, setting the stage for her ongoing exploration of image, text, and storytelling.

As photography transitioned into the digital age, Paula’s work continued in the darkroom, where she experimented with multiple photo transfer processes. Her focus shifted inward as she documented her life raising three sons as a single mother in Durham, North Carolina. She used her camera to explore both presence and absence—photographing her children as well as the quiet spaces without them. The figure and shadow became recurring motifs, reflecting the complexity of the female journey.

She turned the lens on herself, embodying the archetype of the artist-mother, a woman navigating the delicate balance between creative pursuit and caregiving. Her work speaks to the resilience of women who have chosen the more complex, often demanding path of single motherhood while remaining devoted to their art.

Her photography has been exhibited nationally and internationally, with recent highlights including Horse & Buggy Press in Durham, NC,
A Photographers Place in Raleigh, NC, PH21 Gallery in Barcelona, Julia Margaret Cameron Awards exhibition in the same city. Blending found imagery and text, her creative practice crafts layered, narrative-rich works that encourage discovery and reflection.

Paula is committed to fostering creativity and connection through workshops and classes as an educator. She continues to inspire students and audiences alike while expanding her artistic exploration on a global stage.

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Pavement Photos

06/25/2020

A few years ago, I decided to leave North Carolina and move back to New York. Weeks after I got there, my mother slipped on the pavement outside of her apartment getting out of a taxi. The November wind knocked her over. She spent the next seven months in New York in and out of rehab facilities. She came home from one, and fell again after a couple of weeks. Then Meniere's Disease, then more falls, and more rehab. I spent those months in and out of town, taking care of my mom, trying to find work. I walked to Mt Sinai Hospital three to four times per week. This is one of the Sidewalk Memories.

Artist Statement

Paula Siwek is a visual alchemist, transforming photography, collage, and mixed media into evocative storytelling. Through hands-on workshops, she ignites creative instincts, urging participants to layer, explore, and break boundaries. plays with found imagery and existing text, revealing hidden narratives. She believes the most powerful photography isn’t just seen—it’s felt. Siwek is an artist in photography and mixed media. her work is elegant, experimental, and diverse, exploring themes of intimacy and the picturesque with an undertone of mystery and subtle discomfort. Her photographs evoke solitude and deep observation, inviting viewers into layered visual narratives.

While living in Brooklyn, she documented the streets of her neighborhood, its people, and Arthur Kill Correctional Facility in Staten Island. Collaborating with a poet who taught there, she created her first multimedia performance about incarceration, setting the stage for her ongoing exploration of image, text, and storytelling.

As photography transitioned into the digital age, Paula’s work continued in the darkroom, where she experimented with multiple photo transfer processes. Her focus shifted inward as she documented her life raising three sons as a single mother in Durham, North Carolina. She used her camera to explore both presence and absence—photographing her children as well as the quiet spaces without them. The figure and shadow became recurring motifs, reflecting the complexity of the female journey.

She turned the lens on herself, embodying the archetype of the artist-mother, a woman navigating the delicate balance between creative pursuit and caregiving. Her work speaks to the resilience of women who have chosen the more complex, often demanding path of single motherhood while remaining devoted to their art.

Her photography has been exhibited nationally and internationally, with recent highlights including Horse & Buggy Press in Durham, NC,
A Photographers Place in Raleigh, NC, PH21 Gallery in Barcelona, Julia Margaret Cameron Awards exhibition in the same city. Blending found imagery and text, her creative practice crafts layered, narrative-rich works that encourage discovery and reflection.

Paula is committed to fostering creativity and connection through workshops and classes as an educator. She continues to inspire students and audiences alike while expanding her artistic exploration on a global stage.

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