Siene de Vries was born in 1956 in the Netherlands. He studied at the school of fine arts the “Minerva Academy”, in Groningen from 1976 till 1981. In the Netherlands he was involved in teaching both privately and at art institutions and with the organization of several arts festivals. In 1987 he received an arts council grant to enable him to extend his artistic development. Siene exhibited his work throughout the Netherlands and in other European countries. He emigrated to New Zealand in 1988 with wife and fellow artist, printmaker Saskia Van Voorn, and their two sons. They settled in Le Bons Bay on Banks Peninsula where they have their studios.Over the years Siene’s work has been largely figurative with some abstract tendencies from time to time. Siene paints mainly in oils in a realist way using broad strokes with finer detail as he considers necessary. He has explored a variety of subject matter from landscapes and still life to portrait and the nude. It was in the late nineties that he rekindled a lifelong interest in sculpture. Lately his bronze sculptures have been dealing with the human condition in a socio-political context. His work is in public and private collections in various countries around the world.