Gina Siciliano is an artist, writer, musician, and historian living in Seattle, WA. She is the creator of I Know What I Am: The Life and Times of Artemisia Gentileschi, a graphic biography of Italy's most famous woman painter of the seventeenth-century. This ground-breaking synthesis of academic research and ball-point pen art took seven years to complete. I Know What I Am was released in the fall of 2019 by beloved local publisher Fantagraphics. Since then, Siciliano has been lecturing about Artemisia and sharing the story of this project with various museums, schools, and media, from the Seattle Art Museum, to the BBC's Radio 3, to the Frick Museum in Pittsburgh, to St. Olaf College in Minnesota, and more. In 2020 I Know What I Am won an Independent Publisher Award, an American Librarians Association award, and was a finalist for a Washington State Book Award. Siciliano graduated from Pacific Northwest College of Art in 2007, where she studied oil painting, anatomical illustration, figure sculpture, comics, zines, and self-publishing. She's continued oil painting, primarily portraiture, often utilizing early modern and Caravaggesque techniques. Siciliano is also a fixture within Seattle's used bookstore scene, working at various shops where she's determined to put good books into people's hands. Connect with Gina and see her work at Patreon.com/IKnowWhatIAm. 

Website: ginasiciliano.com

Artwork by Gina Siciliano

Gage Academy of Art acknowledges the Coast Salish Peoples as the original inhabitants of this area and connecting waterways. We understand the land that Gage occupies is unceded territory and that today many Indigenous peoples live here and without their stewardship, we would not have access to this space. We honor the Coast Salish Peoples’ sovereignty, rights to self-determination, culture and ways of life. Since time immemorial, Indigenous peoples have called this territory their sacred land. We commit to learning, educating others and repairing the legacy of historically harmful relationships between non-Native and Native peoples in King County. In doing so, we will be honest, and recognize the experiences of Native peoples to include genocide, forced relocation, forced assimilation, and land theft. We also acknowledge Native peoples are survivors, present in today’s world, thriving. We encourage everyone here today to ask themselves: what can I do to support Indigenous communities?

In an effort to be transparent, Gage is contemplating this call to action and re-working how to best support Indigenous communities.

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