Gwenn Liberty Seemel is named after the Liberty Bell, a cracked ding-dong with a venerable history.

Born in Saudi Arabia in 1981, Seemel has lived most of her life in France and the US. In Brittany, she attended the same grammar school her mother did growing up, and she also learned to play a mean game of boule bretonne for an eight year old. Eventually, her family settled in the US, in Oregon, and, these past few years, she has stayed on, graduating summa cum laude from Willamette University in 2003.

Seemel is a full-time artist who often paints portraits--of individuals for commission but also of groups of people for the purpose of exploring a particular issue. Apple Pie is one such series, and some of the work submitted to this site come from it. Created entirely in allegorical portraiture, Apple Pie addresses what it means to be an American. The subjects from this series are mostly first and second generation Americans.

The remainder of the work in the registry comes from Crime Against Nature, a series of paintings and a book that gathers together 50+ animals who don't fit with our traditional notions of gender. This work proves that there are many ways for females and males to be, while also depicting the beauty of natural diversity.

Seemel is the recipient of grants from the Regional Arts and Culture Council, the Oregon Arts Commission, the Celebration Foundation, the Haven Foundation, Change Inc, and Artists’ Fellowship Inc. Her work is in the collection of the Hallie Ford Museum of Art, and it has been written about by the prominent portraiture scholar Dr. Richard Brilliant and featured on Hyperallergic, BoingBoing, and Scientific American.