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Born in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. Received BFA at Hampshire College, Amherst, MA,
and an MFA from Mills College, Oakland, CA. Lives and works in Oakland, California.

Recent exhibitions include, Gregory Lind Gallery, San Francisco, CA; 66 Balmy, San Francisco, CA; San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, San Francisco, CA; Olive Hyde Art Gallery, Fremont, CA; Northampton Center for the Arts, Northampton, MA; Sonoma Museum of Visual Art, Santa Rosa, CA and Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ.

Seth Koen is the recipient of the Jay DeFeo Prize, the Trefthen Merit Award, and the San Francisco Foundation's Cadogan Fellowship.

I am interested in the in-between moments of life, and the questions
these moments raise about what is on either side of them. How do our relationships and connections with other people define us? Where does the individual stop and the group start? What separates art from craft? When does something shift from sculpture to drawing? How do our perceptions define reality?

It is the exploration of these types of questions that have led to the materials --pencil, paint, thread, fabric, lentils, needle and hook-- methods and forms I work with. Crocheted and sewn fabrics draw associations with the domestic, the feminine, and the functional, while my abstract forms refer to more formal modes of artistic practice. Simple forms, such as the circle, easily stand in for the individual, acting as a placeholder in the system. I often employ the color red because of its many associations with body and emotion and because of its strong graphic presence, which allows the constructed object to melt into the drawn line. I hope to open a space for many simultaneous readings, slipping from the intellectual to the emotional, from the universal to the personal.

if, and, then 2003
cotton thread,
plastic pellets
18 ft.



study #5 2003
cotton yarn,
plastic pellets
4 x 4.5 x 22.5 in.

circle #6 2003
cotton fabric, lentils
12 x 12 x 166 in.