By Holly Henschen | Photographed by Lisa Wilcox
Typifying the millennial side-hustle, Madison artist Selia Salzsieder explores body politics in her art while working as a preschool teacher. In her collages, the UW-Madison grad covers the faces of women in vintage nude images with vivid drawings of flowers. Salzsieder, whose work was displayed at 100State during a yearlong artist’s residency there beginning in October 2017, describes herself as a “part-time artist.” “It’s hard trying to balance the full-time, non-art-world job with trying to make an art career for yourself,” she says. Her work is also occasionally displayed at Crescendo Espresso Bar. Salzsieder accepts portrait commissions and sells prints and zines at local events and online.
Salzsieder hopes her art—inspired by feminism, Instagram and former President Barack Obama’s portrait painter Kehinde Wiley—will recontextualize the public perception of women, encouraging viewers to ponder culturally accepted beauty norms. “Beauty and ‘desirable, sexy women’ are presented as one type of person,” she says. “I wanted to insert other bodies into that.”
