Paul Sietsema's ethereal drawings, sculptures and films explore combinations of colour, space and movement through subjects spanning a broad geographic and temporal range. For his third and newest project, "Figure 3" (2008), Sietsema takes as his inspiration a collection of indigenous ethnographic objects found in various locations, including Africa, Indo-Asia and the South Pacific region of Oceania prior to European colonization, that he has collected since 2001. He reimagines these objects through drawings and intricately detailed, handcrafted sculptures, then captures the sculptures onto 16mm film; the end result is a flickering, mostly black and white moving image that slips between abstract and figurative representations. Through his multi-medium depictions, he investigates how different portrayals affect viewers understanding of particular objects. This volume brings together for the first time a comprehensive study of the film and related objects, which together explore ideas of cultural production and the relationships between drawings, materiality and film.
The book situates this body of work in the broader context of the Sietsema's production of the last ten years, with a focus on how drawing functions in relation to his films.