Crow’s Field was the name Kaur and her childhood friends gave an unclaimed strip of farmland where she grew up in rural New England. During games this nameless acreage between the forest and the road became a magical no-man‘s-land, transforming into a metaphorical space where the imaginary and the real collide.

Purposely engaging with versions of the photographic genres of still life, landscape, and portraiture allow the artist to access memories of Crow’s Field. This remembered place is impossible to document since it no longer exists except in memory, so Kaur photographs it by making fragmented atmospheric images that recall her idea of the uncanny utopia. Her pictures de-center the classic narrative structure through subtle dislocations of time and space, leaving out clues that would complete the narrative as a whole and inviting the viewer to participate in finishing the story.
Invaded throughout by everyday natural elements that are almost too strange to believe, Kaur creates an otherworldy stream-of-consciousness meditation on memory in photographs- a freshly caught octopus becomes a pagan still life; a girl and her dog morph into a chimera at rest; a sunflower transforms into a baroque abstraction. Upon closer examination, a touch of menace often underlies the most familiar and genteel exteriors. Kaur seizes on the corroding sense of uneasiness that gnaws at her most cherished attachments. It’s not that she can’t go home again; it’s that home was never exactly what she thought it was.




Portraits are the byproduct of conflict. They offer an outline of the negotiation between competing agendas, not only between that of the artist and the sitter, but also between one’s internal idealized image, and the one that is culturally ascribed to us. Despite its seeming stability, the portrait is located at the uncomfortable midpoint between self and other, the accumulation of myriad forces that are impossible to represent. It is this ambiguity, these absent conditions, that lend portraiture its seduction.

The photographs of wresters in Cruiserweight function as heroic portraits. These young athletes are both vulnerable and proud, standing strong in their revealing clothes. I photograph the wrestlers right after their matches, their bodies elated from a win or downtrodden from a loss, but always physically spent. I want to photograph the dialectic that emerges between their young adolescent bodies and the personae of the feared competitor, between vulnerability and the desire to project an appearance of strength. The tight singlets create a general impression of androgyny; the girls look like boys, and the boys, with their bodily hair shaved, look a lot like the girls. The action photos are particularly interesting: they are all of female wresters, but the headgear hides their long hair, tricking most viewers into assuming they are male. My wrestlers attempt to project their most perfect selves through the lens: they yearn to show a physical ideal that will psyche out their opponents, revealing a sensuous, unsettling strength to my camera’s lens.  



I take photographs of strangers. They are people unknown to me, whose lives I briefly investigate through the act of photography. The strangers select themselves by responding to notices I post online, announcing that I need subjects for portraits. The fact that these individuals are from outside my sphere of existence is essential. Giving me permission to enter their lives satisfies a deep-seated curiosity I have nurtured for years. Watching people at cafes or chatting at parties, I am fascinated by people that I can never know anything about. My role as photographer gives me the key to accessing these anonymous existences.

These staged portraits are concrete fictions: they are my fantasies about the lives of people who willingly invite me into their homes. Some of the people who want their picture taken are aspiring models; some are children of mothers who want a nice picture to give grandma. Others are simply lonely and enjoy the attention. Young girls can be awkward; old men can be graceful, yet all have a unique, strange beauty when I see them through the lens.

During the portrait session, our agendas inevitably collide; I have a specific idea about the way I want the subjects to appear, and I control this through my choice of photographic tools: camera format, composition, and lighting. I try to enable their fantasies by using lighting and the medium format camera. Part of my function as photographer is to facilitate the sitter’s desire. The resulting pictures reveal the trace of this social negotiation, between my idea of how they should appear, and the way they see themselves.



In 2007 and 2008 I undertook a photographic exploration of time and light, traveling to Kitt Peak in Arizona to photograph outer space. With the help of planetary scientists, I captured pictures of distant galaxies on a digital sensor attached to a Meade solar telescope. After shooting, I returned to the traditional darkroom for a series of what I term “experiments”.

The darkroom process begins by making a physical negative from the digitally captured astro-images, by embodying light as material form. I follow the principles of traditional color darkroom printing, a subtractive color system, using cyan, magenta, and yellow filters to remove various colors of light from the negative. Half of the picture is in the negative, and the other half is in the positive. The two halves can never be united in one picture.

I draw on both negative and positive with various chemicals. I make contact prints that render the negative’s colors in reverse, and expose the light from the enlarger to various filters and gels. There is a bizarre dislocation that occurs where I wonder, what makes these photographs different from those in “Sky & Telescope” magazine? The answer lies in the way they have been manipulated, the way the pixels become grain that becomes physical dots of color on paper. I’m going back to basics, back to the sheer joy of playing with color and line on paper, of drawing with light. This project re-engages with one of the simplest and most basic purposes of photography: to show us what we would otherwise remain unseen. I’m using science & technology to show my particular romantic view of the medium of photography, where the failure and power of the medium cohere in material form.



Exhibits

SHE TELLS ALL

2019 at Eric Buterbaugh, Los Angeles



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Crow's Field

2017 at Kopeikin Gallery, Los Angeles



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This Kind of Face

2014 at Cohen Gallery, Los Angeles



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Rob and Heather and Chris and Otto and Koral...

2014 at Vermont Center for Photography, Vermont



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Half of the Whole

2013 at Cohen Gallery, Los Angeles



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Know Me for the First Time

2011 at Blythe Projects, Los Angeles



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About 


Siri Kaur (b. Boston, MA,1976) is an artist and photographer who examines identities that occupy dualities, diversity, and contradiction, with a rigorous eye for the photographic quality of magic. She received her MFA from The California Institute of the Arts, and an MA and a BA from Smith College. Kaur’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Blythe Projects, Cohen Gallery, and Kopeikin Gallery, Los Angeles; at 99¢ Plus, New York; at the Vermont Center for Photography, and at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Group shows include those at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the San Antonio Museum of Art, the Aperture Foundation, the Portland Museum of Art, the Camera Club of New York, the Torrance Museum of Art, and the Museum of Photographic Arts, among others.

Kaur’s work has been reviewed in ARTFORUM, The Los Angeles Times, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. She was a Professor of Fine Arts at Otis College of Art and Design from 2007-2018. In 2014 Leroy Press published Kaur’s first monograph, This Kind of Face,that documented the world of celebrity impersonators. She lives and works in Los Angeles. 


Contact Siri Kaur at siri@sirikaur.com


Siri Kaur

b. Boston, Massachusetts
Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA


Education

2007 –– MFA in Photography, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA

2001 –– MA in Italian Studies, Smith College, Northampton, MA/ Universita’ di Firenze, Florence, Italy

1998 –– BA Comparative Literature, Minor in Italian, Smith College, Northampton, MA


Solo Exhibitions







































































Selected Group Exibitions














2019 –– SHE TELLS ALL, Eric Buterbaugh Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2019 –– Upper Layers, El Classificado, Los Angeles, CA and Venice, Italy

2018 –– Crow’s Field, Vermont Center for Photography, Brattleboro, VT

2018 –– Urban Lights, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA

2017 –– Crow’s Field, Kopeikin Gallery, Los Angeles CA

2014 –– This Kind of Face, Stephen Cohen Gallery, Los Angeles, CA


2014 –– This Kind of Face, 99 Cent Plus, New York, NY

2014 –– Rob and Heather and Chris and Otto and Koral..., Vermont Center for Photography, Brattleboro, VT

2011 –– Know Me for the First Time, Blythe Projects, Los Angeles, CA

2011 –– Field Trip, 3001 Gallery, USC Roski School of Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, curated by Stefano DiPaola


2011 –– More Than or Equal to Half of the Whole (with Kate Johnson), Garboushian Gallery, Beverly Hills, CA

2008–– In Arcadia, Gallery 825, Los Angeles, CA

2007 –– Cruiserweight, D300 Gallery, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA


2006 –– The Collectors, L-Shape Gallery, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA


2022 –– Golden Hour: California Photography from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California State University, Northridge, Art Galleries, Northridge, CA, and Vincent Price Art Museum at East Los Angeles College, Los Angeles, CA, curated by Eve Schillo

2021 –– Every Woman Biennial, Superchief Gallery, New York, NY

2021 –– NOMAD, Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA, curated by Max Presneill

2021 –– Golden Hour: California Photography from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Lancaster Museum of Art and History, Lancaster, CA, and Riverside Art Museum, Riverside, CA, curated by Eve Schillo

2020 –– Garden, Ladies’ Room, Los Angeles CA

2020 –– Men of Steel, Women of Wonder, Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA

2019 –– Men of Steel, Women of Wonder,San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, TX

2019 –– A Secret, River Gallery, Los Angeles, CA and Berlin, Germany

2019 –– Every Woman Biennial, Bendix Building, Los Angeles

2019 –– Men of Steel, Women of Wonder, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR

2019 –– Keeping up with the Gagosians, El Clasificado, Los Angeles, CA

2018 –– Super Radiance, The Nook Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2018 –– Anti-Nostalgia, The Carrack Modern, Durham, NC

2018 –– Covers, The Bloke, Pasadena, CA (curated by Justin Cole)

2017 –– Back to School, Los Angeles Center of Photography, Los Angeles, CA

2017 –– Greetings From, The Art Barge, Amagansett, NY

2016 –– INFOCUS: Second Triennial of Self-Published Photobooks, Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ

2016 –– Postage Required, Vermont Center for Photography, Brattleboro, VT

2016 –– The Last Four Years, Stephen Cohen Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2016 –– To Whom it May Concern, 99¢ Plus, New York, NY

2015 –– Directors’ Cut: Selections from Maine Art Museums, Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME

2015 –– Neo-Pre-Post-Contra-Para-Anti-Hyper-Pro-Trans-Ultra-Photography, Spectre Arts, Durham, NC

2014 –– INFOCUS: Self-Published Photobooks, Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ

2014 –– Of the Afternoon, Darnley Gallery, London, UK

2014 –– Summer Open, Aperture Foundation, New York, NY (curated by Chris Boot, executive director, Aperture Foundation)

2014 –– 99¢ Plus!, 99¢ Plus, New York, NY

2014 –– 24/7 (still life), Stephen Cohen Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2014 –– A Forest: Cathy Ackers, Annie Buckley, Anita Bunn, Siri Kaur, 2A Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (curated by Calvin Phelps)

2014 –– From Her, El Pueblo Historical Monument, Los Angeles, CA

2013 –– Forêt Intérieure/Interior Forest, 18th Street Arts Center, Santa Monica, CA

2013 –– Influenced by the Sun, Stephen Cohen Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (curated by Peter Bartlett)

2013 –– Staking Claim: The California Triennial of Photography, Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, CA

2013 –– Falling From Great Heights: Siri Kaur, John Knuth, Heather Rasmussen, Stephen Cohen Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2013 –– Out of Thin Air, LAX, Los Angeles, CA

2012 –– Siri Kaur, Soo Kim, and Christina Ondrus, Woodbury University Gallery, Hollywood, CA (curated by Leonardo Bravo)

2011 –– Pissed Elegance, Stephen Cohen Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2011 –– Cosmic Prom, Vortex Immersion Dome, Los Angeles, CA

2011 –– Chain Letter, Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (curated by Christian Cummings & Doug Harvey)

2011 –– Too True, POST Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2011 –– Nuove Opere, U-Skill Gallery, Rome, Italy

2011 –– THE SERIES, The Standard Hotel, Los Angeles, CA

2011 –– Fuck Pretty, Robert Berman Gallery, Santa Monica, CA (curated by Angela Featherstone)

2011 –– Contemporary Art Ruhr, Ruhr Zollverein, Ruhr, Germany (catalog)

2011 –– Redefining Hollywood, The Factory, Los Angeles, CA

2011 –– Play Time, See Line Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2011 –– Sing Me to Sleep, Angles Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (curated by Soo Kim)

2011 –– Curious Silence, Brand Library Gallery, Glendale, CA (catalog)

2011 –– Portland Museum of Art 2011 Biennial, Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME (catalog)

2010 –– Por)trait Revealed, RayKo Photo Center, San Francisco, CA

2010 –– See-Thru, Gallery 825 and The Icon, Los Angeles, CA (curated by Professor Shinsuke Shimojo, California Institute of Technology [catalog])

2010 –– Altimetry, LAX and Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (curated by Mark Steven Greenfield, director of Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery)

2010 –– Contemporary Art RUHR Projects, Ruhr, Germany

2010 –– Outside the Project, RAID Projects, Los Angeles, CA

2009 –– Curious Silence, SOIL Gallery, Seattle, WA

2009 –– Perspective, Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins, CO

2009 –– More with Less, Gallery 825, Los Angeles, CA (curated by Kristina Newhouse, chief curator, Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA)

2008 –– In the Bedroom, Meter Gallery, New York, NY

2008 –– Members Only, Dishman Art Museum, Beaumont, TX

2008 –– Everyone’s a Curator, Telic Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2008 –– Conventions and Attitudes, Trade & Row, Los Angeles, CA

2008 –– Projection, Salon Oblique, Santa Monica, CA

2007 –– All In, Torrance Museum of Art, Torrance, CA

2007 –– My Buddy, UCLA Wight Biennial, UCLA Wight Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (curated by Russell Ferguson)

2007 –– You are Beautiful, Hayworth Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2007 –– For Ever, 915 Mateo, Los Angeles, CA (curated by Eungie Joo, curator, New Museum, New York, NY)

2007 –– Making Meaning, Gallery 825, Los Angeles, CA (curated by Howard Fox, curator, Los Angeles County Museum of Art)

2006 –– Mid-Residency Show, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA

2006 –– Open Show, Gallery 825, Los Angeles, CA (curated by Ann Philbin, chief curator, UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA)

2006 –– I Would Be You, Newspace Gallery, Portland, OR

2006 –– Photography Now, 401 Projects, New York, NY

2006 –– Photography Now, Center for Photography at Woodstock, Woodstock, NY

2006 –– Greater Los Angeles MFA Show (GLAMFA), CalState Long Beach Gallery, Long Beach, CA

2006 –– 2006, NOW, Soho Photo Gallery, New York, NY

2005 –– Nothing to See Here, Art 2102, Los Angeles, CA (curated by Walead Beshty)

2005 –– New Photography, Riverside Art Museum, Riverside, CA

2005 –– In Focus: Photography Techniques and Trends, Target Gallery, Alexandria, VA

2005 –– Photography Now, Newspace Center for Photography, Portland, OR

2005 –– National Women’s Show, Washington Gallery of Photography, Bethesda, MD (curated by Sarah Kennel, curator, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.)


Collections

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

Los Angeles County Museum of American Art


Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME

University of Maine Art Museum, Orono, ME

Lawrence Gagosian Collection

Oprah Winfrey Collection


Awards + Grants

2020 –– Charcoal Publishing Prize

2012 –– COLA Grant Artist Portraits, 12 portraits for COLA grants catalog

2011 –– Center for Cultural Innovation/ Durfee Grant

2006 –– Portland Museum of Art Biennial Purchase Prize

2006 –– California Institute of the Arts Merit Scholarship


Residencies 

2023 –– The Arctic Circle, Svalbard, Greenland


2022 –– Bonfire, Reykjavik, Iceland


2009 –– Bakery Photographic Collective, Portland, ME



Bibliography

2022 –– Delaney Hoffman, “SHE TELLS ALL: Practice and Portraiture”, photoeye.com, Feb. 3, 2022.

2022 –– Johanna Drucker, “Illuminating Images: Liquid Light and Golden Hour and the Affective Force of
Non-Didactic Art”, Riot Material, Jan. 7, 2022.

2021 –– Jessica Hundley and Pam Grossman, “Divination: Seeing Within,” in The Library of Esoterica: Witchcraft, Jessica Hundley and Pam Grossman, ed., (Taschen, 2021): 424-425.

2021 –– Harriet- Lloyd-Smith, “The Every Woman Biennial is a transatlantic triumph,” Wallpaper Magazine, June 14, 2021.

2020 –– Aline Smithson, “Siri Kaur: SHE TELLS ALL,” Lenscratch, Mar. 19, 2020.

2019 –– Nate Rynaski, “Siri Kaur, SHE TELLS ALL,” Flaunt Magazine, Oct. 29, 2019.  

2019 –– Shana Nys Dambrot, “Meet an Artist Monday: Siri Kaur,” LA Weekly, Oct 28, 2019.

2019 –– “Art & Life with Siri Kaur”, Voyage LA Magazine, Jan. 2.

2019 –– Serena McKay, “Crystal Bridges exhibit aims to lasso truth of heroes’ roots,” Arkansas Democrat Gazette, Little Rock, AK, Feb. 9.

2019 –– Peter Saenger, “Supermen and Wonder Women: Artists reimagine comic-book heroes with admiration and irreverence”, The Wall Street Journal, New York, NY, Jan. 19-20

2019 –– Caleb Talley, “Men of Steel, Women of Wonder,” About You Magazine, Jan. 24.

2018 –– Rebecca Morse, “Institutionally Antiestablishment,” in 27 L.A. Photographers, Rebecca Morse, ed., (Los Angeles County Museum of Art Press, 2018): 6-12, 30-31.

2018 –– Gwynedd Stuart, “LACMA Celebrates 10 Years of Urban Light with a Beautiful Photo Series,” Los Angeles Magazine, Feb. 9. 

2018 –– Taylor Curry, “Siri Kaur,” Ain’t Bad Magazine, Jan. 28. 

2017 –– Genie Davis, “Siri Kaur and Rebecca Bird at Kopeikin Gallery,” Art and Cake, Apr. 16.

2017 –– Josh Hagler, “Other Faiths, Part 1 + 2” Venison Quarterly, Spring 2017.

2017 –– Holly Hughes, “Memories of Crow’s Field,” Photo District News, Mar. 13.

2017 –– Aline Smithson, “Siri Kaur: Crow’s Field, “Lenscratch, Mar. 11. 

2015 –– Kristen Osborne-Bartucca, “Siri Kaur,” Artillery Magazine, Jan./ Feb., p. 70.

2015 –– Shana Nys Dambrot, “Top Ten Critic’s Picks of 2014,” art ltd., Jan./ Feb. 2015, p. 51.

2015 –– Catherine Opie, “Vanity: a special section curated by Catherine Opie,” Musee Magazine, Issue 11, Apr., p. 290-291.

2015 –– Matthew Stromberg, “Photo LA,” Hyperallergic, Jan. 19.

2015 –– Ken Weingart, “Interview with Photographer Siri Kaur,” petapixel.com, Feb. 19.

2014 –– Christine Santa Ana and Phil Anderson, Of the Afternoon, Issue 6, Sep. 30.

2014 –– Christina Procter, “Zealous Eyes,” Trend art +design +architecture Magazine, Issue 1, Jun. 2014, p.18.

2014 –– Thea Traff, “Seeing Double,” The New Yorker, Nov. 26.

2013 –– Bill Bush, “Falling From Great Heights,” Huffington Post, Mar. 26.

2013 –– Paul Caridad, “Film Photography of Galaxies through a Telescope,” Visual News, May 14.

2013 –– Amanda Gorence, “Ethereal Photos of Distant Galaxies,” Feature Shoot, May 14.

2013 –– Nicholas Grider, “Crow’s Field,” Public Display Magazine, March 2013.

2013 –– Catlin Moore, “Emergent Presence: Siri Kaur” in Eight LA Artists You Should Know, Fabrik Magazine, Issue 20, Apr., 44-45.

2013 –– A. Moret, “Siri Kaur,” Installation Magazine, “California” Issue 8, Jul. 2013.

2013 –– Holly Myers, “Photographs that Say ‘yes/and’,” The Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, CA, Apr. 26, D16.

2013 –– Bianca Rocco, “Siri Kaur Captures the Galaxies: Telescope Photography,” Quixote, Aug. 14.

2013 –– Matt Stromberg, “Outer Spaces, Los Angeles: Falling from Great Heights,” Art Practical, Apr. 14.

2013 –– Maya Sugarman, “The Color of Space,” Audiovision, KPCC.org, May 9.

2013 –– Phil Tarley,  “Cohen Gallery Exhibition: Falling from Great Heights,” Fabrik Magazine, Issue 20, Apr., 68-73.

2013 –– Westerbeck, Colin, “All Together Now! Themes and Shared Concerns in Staking Claim: A California Invitational,” in Staking Claim: A California Invitational, Chantel Paul, ed., (Museum of Photographic Arts Press, San Diego, 2011): 4-7.

2012 –– Leonardo Bravo, “Big City Forum: Interview with Soo Kim, Siri Kaur, and Christina Ondrus,” KCET’s Artbound, Oct. 22. 

2012 –– For Your Art, “Big City Forum: The Hub,” Oct. 11.

2012 –– Marnie Hanel, “Hella Cool,” Marie Claire 19, issue no. 6, Jun., 131.

2012 –– Natalie Hegert, “Does Photography Matter?,” Artslant, Los Angeles Art Special Edition 2012, Jan. 14.

2012 –– A. Moret, “Looking Forward into the Past,” Installation Magazine, In Blank We Trust Issue, May, 28-33.

2012 –– Daniel Rolnik, “Photo LA,” Argot & Ochre, Jan. 13. 

2011 –– Artforum, “Portland Art Museum Awards Biennial Prizes,” Apr. 8

2011 –– Edgar Allen Beem, “The Art Forecast: No Shortage of Discoveries in Portland Museum of Art Biennial,” The Forecaster, Portland, ME, Apr. 4.

2011 –– Shana Nys Dambrot, “Fuck Pretty at Robert Berman Gallery,” art ltd., Sep./Oct., 35.

2011 –– Shana Nys Dambrot, “Critic’s Picks Los Angeles: Siri Kaur,” art ltd., Nov./Dec., 48-49.

2011 –– Travis Diehl, “Critic’s Picks,” Artforum, Feb. 7.

2011 –– For Your Art, “Know Me For the First Time,” Oct. 27.

2011 –– Peter Frank, “Haiku Review,” The Huffington Post, Aug. 12.

2011 –– Daniel Kany, “Every Decade or so, PMA’s Biennial is Extra Special,” Portland Press Herald/ Maine Sunday Telegraph, Apr. 17, D5.

2011 –– Bob Keyes, “It’s That Time Again,” Portland Press Herald/ Maine Sunday Telegraph, Apr. 3, D1-D2.

2011 –– Annie Larmon and Nicholas Schroder, “Touring the PMA’s Biennial,” The Portland Phoenix, Apr. 13.

2011 –– Anne Martens, “Contemporary Art RUHR,” Artillery Magazine, Volume 5 Issue 4, Mar./Apr.,  42-43.

2011 –– Thomas Meaney, Menace and Wonder, in “Know Me for the First Time,” (Los Angeles, CA, Icon Books): 5-8.

2011 –– Leah Ollman, “Art Review: Siri Kaur at Blythe Projects,” The Los Angeles Times, Nov. 10, D21.

2011 –– Portland Press Herald, “Purchase Prizes Awarded at Launching of Art Biennial,” Apr. 7, B2.

2011 –– Ray Routhier, “Five Artists Receive Purchase Prizes at Portland Museum of Art Biennial Opening,” Portland Press Herald, Portland, ME, Apr. 10, D2.

2011 –– Katie Shapiro, “A Poetic Counter-World Photographed by Siri Kaur,” Feature Shoot, Nov. 29.

2011 –– Sebastian Smee, “Biennial Hits,” The Boston Globe, Boston, MA, May 8, B3.

2011 –– Aline Smithson, “Siri Kaur,” Lenscratch, Thursday, Oct. 20.

2010 –– Greg Cookland, “Portland Museum of Art,” New England Journal of Aesthetic Research, Oct. 7.

2010 –– Bob Keyes, "Museum of Art Picks 47 Artists for Biennial Show," Portland Press Herald, Portland, ME, Oct. 4, D3.

2009 –– Cary Berglund, Interview, NBC Channel 4 News, Los Angeles, CA, Apr. 10.

2009 –– Zoe Crosher, Interrupting the Imaginary Inside the Ship of My Imagination,” Art Lies Quarterly, no.61, Spring, 24-27.

2009 –– Laurel Ptak, “Siri Kaur,” Iheartphotograph, Jan. 20.

2009 –– Laurel Ptak, Iheartphotograph.com, Mar. 10.

2009 –– Aline Smithson, lenscratch.com, Jan. 21.

2009 –– Page Weary, “Gallery 825,” Artillery Magazine, Los Angeles.

2008 –– Peter Mays, “Sustaining Emerging Artist’s Communities,” THE Magazine, Los Angeles, CA, Oct.

2007 –– Harris Fogel, “Thoughts On Photography,” Houston Center for Photography Quarterly, Winter 2007.

2007 –– John Rabe & Queena Kim, Interview, Offramp, 89.3 KPCC, Los Angeles, CA, Jan. 6.

2006 –– Jay DeFoore, “Emerging Photographers,” American Photo, June 2006.

2005 –– Curtis Clarkson, CMYK Magazine #31, New York, NY, 41. 

2005 –– Curtis Clarkson, CMYK Magazine #30, New York, NY, 48.

2005 –– Joerg Colberg, “Siri Kaur: Contemporary Photographers,” Conscientious, Oct. 7, 2005.

2005 –– Jessica Dawson, “Through A Lens Starkly,” The Washington Post, Washington, D.C., Jun. 16, C5.

2005 –– John Motley, “New Photography,” The Portland Mercury, Portland, OR, Oct. 2005.

2005 –– Holly Hughes, “Photo Annual,” Photo District News, May, p. 157.


Publications as author 

2014 –– “This Kind of Face,” (Los Angeles, CA, Leroy Press, 2014).

2013 ––“Tanja Hollander: A Photographer’s Attempt to Photograph 687 Facebook Friends,” Feature Shoot, Jun. 20.

2013 –– “Heather Rasmussen: Photographer Recreates Disasters and Accidents Involving Shipping Containers,” Feature Shoot, Jun. 24.

2011 –– “Know Me for the First Time,” (Los Angeles, CA, Icon Books).

2013 –– “Siri Kaur,” in 2011 Portland Museum of Art Biennial, Mark Bessire, ed., (Portland Museum of Art Press, Portland, ME): 64-65.

2010 –– “Do You Want to Make a Picture Book?,” Words Without Pictures, Alex Klein, ed. (New York, NY, Aperture): 172-174.

2001 –– “Il Sogno del Paradiso Terrestre: Il Poema Pastorale e il Giardino nel Rinascimento Italiano (Dream of an Earthly Paradise: Pastoral Poetry and the Garden in the Italian Renaissance),” (Northampton, MA, Smith College Press), 2001.


Academic Appointments

2021 ––2022 Visiting Faculty, School of Arts and Architecture, University of California, Los Angeles

2004 ––2018 Associate Professor, Fine Arts and Foundation Programs, Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA

2010 ––2014 Assistant Professor, Fine Arts and Foundation Programs, Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA

2007 ––2010 Visiting Lecturer, Fine Art and Foundation Programs, Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA

2005 ––2007 Teaching Assistant, Foundation Photography, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA


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This Kind of Face
Siri Kaur
52 pages, hardcover
8.5 x 10.5 in./ 21.5 x 26.5 cm
Published September 2014
First edition of 250
ISBN 978-1-1623-4

This Kind of Face captures impersonators who spend much of their daily life as costumed celebrity look-alikes. As we look closely at the subjects of these photographs we see people who are not quite living out fantasies of being the rich and famous. Rather, they are look-alikes in the business of being a doppelganger, providing a tangible vessel for the audience’s already media-saturated imagination. Like her subjects, who fashion themselves after specific glamorized Hollywood and media constructions, Kaur found herself over the course of the project impersonating the production of celebrity photographers such as Richard Avedon and Bruce Weber. She imitated Hollywood industry headshots and US Weekly paparazzo pictures, and created her own 4x5 photographic versions of Warhol’s Marilyns and dictators. Together the pictures in "This Kind of Face" function as playful hybridic references to the multiplicity of possibilities existing within the expans ive field of photographic portraiture.

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Know Me for the First Time
Siri Kaur
56 pages, soft cover
5.5 X 8.5 in./ 14 x 21.5 cm
Published October 2011
First edition of 250

The self-published volume Know Me for the First Time accompanied Siri Kaur's 2011 exhibition of the same title at Blythe Projects in Los Angeles. Accompanied by an introductory essay by critic and writer Thomas Meaney, the small-scale layout and intimate size of the book further Kaur's visual investigations into longing, desire, history, and memory, both private and public. The images in this volume present psychologically charged places and individuals whose emotional states teeter between despair and redemption.

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