KU Common Work of Art

Hollis Sigler
born 1985, Gary, Indiana, United Sates; died Prairie View, Illinois, United States
Haunted by the Ghosts of Our Own Making, 1995 
oil, canvas
Museum purchase, 1996.0008
On display: Michaelis Gallery, Empowerment exhibition

For the 2025–2026 academic year, the Spencer pairs Hollis Sigler’s painting Haunted by the Ghosts of Our Own Making with The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet by John Green.

The Anthropocene Reviewed presents a series of essays that explore a wide range of familiar topics while considering the interconnectivity of life. Author John Green uses a five-star rating system for each essay topic, thereby “reviewing” what it means to be human in the modern era. Sigler’s paintings function similarly to the essays in Anthropocene Reviewed. Both present like journal entries with autobiographical references to family, friends, and personal illness, and offer meditations on life, relationships, and emotional states. 

Similar to Green’s essays, Sigler takes a singular focus with Haunted by the Ghosts of Our Own Making— dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, the insecticide more commonly known as DDT— to review and reflect on different ways and forms the subject can relate to various aspects of our lives. The painting presents a theatrical stage with curtains parted to reveal a sunset backdrop and a performance of ghostly skeletal servers attending a diner-less table prepared for a feast. Scratched faintly above in white are the letters "DDT" and a crop-duster spraying the scene. Sigler inscribes her message around the handmade frame: “Although the use of DDT has been banned by the Government for years, its long-term effects are now being recognized. The cancer-causing potential of pesticides in use today may be hidden for years to come.”

Sigler was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1985. From the 1990s until her death in 2001, her art focused on her personal struggle with cancer as well as the disease’s effect on society. 

Both Sigler’s painting and Green’s essays cast light on a subject to make it visible from multiple perspectives. Their work encourages us to look behind the curtain of what might seem invisible, such as the consequences of human actions in the age of the Anthropocene. Recurring themes across Green’s essays resonate with Haunted by the Ghosts of Our Own Making, such as memory, hope, illness, survival, knowing and understanding facts and truth to distinguish from lies, meaning-making, and the wonder of art.

You can view the Common Work of Art in the Empowerment exhibition in our Michaelis Gallery.