Brooke Siem

In 2023, Brooke Siem began oil painting in secret after the publication of her award-winning book on psychiatric drug withdrawal, "May Cause Side Effects."

Put on a cocktail of antidepressants as a child in the wake of her father’s sudden death, Siem spent most of her life medicated until, at 30, a psychiatrist pulled her off her drugs and sent her into horrific antidepressant withdrawal that had one beautiful side effect: her visual field quite literally, turned from gray to technicolor.

Moved to capture the experience of transitioning into an unmedicated world, Siem’s work is an elegy to darkness, light, and the process of awakening. Her work falls into two categories: small, monochromatic pieces on paper that exist as remnants of turmoil and unrest, and larger, bold expressions of color inspired by cubism, futurism, and the nature of consciousness itself.

Siem is self taught, with no formal training.