Biography

Born in Alexandria, Virginia and raised in Los Angeles, Cia Foreman received her B.A. in Art from the University of California, Los Angeles where she studied with Richard Diebenkorn, Robert Heineken, Edmund Teske, Judy Chicago, and David Hockney.  Foreman earned her M.A. in Art from California State University, Sacramento.  She has exhibited her work at San Francisco Camerawork, California State University, Los Angeles, New Langton Arts, and the Long Beach Museum of Art. Foreman lives in Palo Alto, California.  These will be the first works by the artist to enter SJMA’s permanent collection. (SJMA Collections Committee, 2003)

Cia Foreman webpage biography: http://www.ciaforeman.com/bio_and_exhibitions/frameset.html
Born in Alexandria, Virginia and raised in Los Angeles, Cia Foreman received her B.A. in Art from the University of California, Los Angeles where she studied with Richard Diebenkorn, Robert Heineken, Edmund Teske, Judy Chicago, and David Hockney. During this time, she explored alternatives to the “frame” of traditional painting by stretching canvas over a three-dimensional cube and painting a two-dimensional figure wrapping itself around it. This was the beginning of her interest in working with the dichotomies of the perception of space and the illusions created by the ground/figure relationship.

At the same time, Cia was drawn to working more conceptually and continued to explore three-dimensional objects and, with the help of Bob Irwin, the effect of placement and light source to emphasize or diminish preconceptions of space. Irwin’s influence would become even more apparent in her later work with photographic projection installations.

A move to the San Francisco Bay Area found Cia producing paintings on an intimate scale, of a more personal nature, as well as less representational. It was also at this time that she experimented with black and white photographic images that she “painted” with chemicals during the developing process. These experimental images led to the large scale projection installations where she imposed her imagined images into the photographic “reality” in order to alter the perception of the landscape. Her interest then was to work in the environment, and her site specific photographic installations as well as her interest in layering images began with the seeds of the work she was producing at this time. While working on these projects, Cia earned her M.A. in Art from California State University, Sacramento.

Cia continued to work with sequential images, each image separate yet connected by a horizon line, or a shift in viewpoint. These sometimes visually connected, yet sometimes visually disparate images continue to be compelling for her and are apparent in her current work. Whether projecting images onto the walls of her studio and reshooting them in combination with objects placed in the studio, or layering archival material with photographic landscape, or working with a narrative of sequential images, Cia Foreman focuses on visual connections, explicit or implied, to suggest the fluidity of realities. The past momentarily inhabits the present. A marriage is formed between a sense of place and imagination. A shadow evokes a fleeting feeling. If the moment and the image are right, perhaps there may occur a glimpse into the elusive, or an experience of recognition and remembrance.

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