Born in Gary, Indiana, and living in Chicago, Hollis Sigler adopted a "faux" naive style of painting as a mocking reaction against a culture that she perceived treats women like children. She also found this style one that most people can relate to, and staying at this level, she created works that are purposefully awkward.

Many of her paintings have written banners and decorative, painted frames and depict intimate interiors or suburban back yards. Often there is a shadowy figure whom she calls "the lady," who is a symbol for real people.

From 1975, Sigler has created psychologically complex narrative paintings, drawings, and prints that relate to her own personal experiences. Her themes are women's lives including love, family, coping with loss and diseases, and the inevitability of death.

In 1985, these themes were especially meaningful to her because she was diagnosed with breast cancer, something that had killed her mother and grandmother. She had a time of remission, and then the cancer returned. From then, she lived by coping with its ongoing presence, and many of her later works focused on the theme of breast cancer---its complex issues including treatment and emotional reactions. The artist died on April 2, 2001 at the age of fifty three.

Sigler studied art in Florence, Italy from 1968 to 1969, and in 1970, earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from Moore College of Art. In 1973, she received a Master of Fine Arts Degree from the Art Institute of Chicago. She has exhibited widely including the 1981 Whitney Biennial and the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington DC. She has been on the faculty of Columbia College in Chicago, teaching painting and drawing.