Siri Hollander was born in New York in 1959, but her family quickly relocated to the south of Spain where they remained for most of her childhood. Siri’s earliest memories consist of riding massive Andalusian mares across the rolling hills of Andalusia, where these magnificent beasts and the land itself became her teachers.  Arguably self-taught, Siri’s unusual and wild upbringing has certainly influenced her rough and emotional sculptures.

Siri Hollander’s entire process started from an innate desire to work in large format but being self-taught she had to create her own system through trial and error in order to make strong, permanent pieces in a medium that would work well outdoors. She discovered that welding together a steel armature, and then adding a mixture of cement and sand she could collect in nearby riverbeds created something strong that could endure any weather. This mixture of earthy textures is also what gives Siri Hollander’s work it’s unique character and textures. 

While horses are her main focus, Siri Hollander is also known for her distinct human figures. These pieces are often described as distorted and strange. However, these enigmatic representations of the human body are meant to be strange and uncomfortable in order to portray that sensation that most people have felt at least once of not being one with one’s own body. Siri Hollander explains her human figures by saying “A lot of these bodies are teen-like and are meant to portray that struggle of growing up and not really recognizing yourself at times.

Siri Hollander now lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico where she has opened a gallery. She still works nearly every day on her art. In recent years, Siri’s priority has become placing her art in public spaces. After growing up in Europe and being able to see great pieces of art nearly everywhere open to the public, Siri believes the ability to live with public art was a fundamental part of why she became an artist herself. Because of this, she hopes to place her pieces in public in order to help inspire young artists the way she was inspired as a child. Siri Hollander has been in the business for a long time and sees her next adventure in the art world as something more than simply creating. She hopes to inspire, teach and help others enjoy and have access to art in the ways that she had growing up.