Hollis Sigler (1948-2001) was an educator, activist, and pioneering feminist artist, who lived and worked in Chicago. She rose to prominence in the 1970s as part of Chicago's vibrant art scene, co-founding Artemesia Gallery, a female cooperative space. By the late 1970s, Sigler favored a naive style of representation, influenced by the unrestrained drawing of her youth, and driven by a desire to shift how narrative was communicated in art. Centered on the experiences of women, Sigler's works from the early 1980s portrayed domestic scenes set within skewed, nearly theatrical spaces. Figures were often depicted in shadow or absent entirely from Sigler's compositions, and in their place, opened dressers, strewn items of clothing, and traces of activity would suggest the aftermath of an event. This was often reinforced by the works' titles, which adorned the works and their intricate, handmade frames. Sigler viewed the removal of the figure as a way to generate visual tension and to explore fleeting emotional states, such as passion, romance, desire, anxiety as well as fear.

Sigler's work underwent another shift in 1985 after she was diagnosed with breast cancer, a disease that afflicted her mother and grandmother. While Sigler initially kept her diagnosis private, her works became charged with frenetic brushstrokes and agitated colors, as she connected her own fears of impermanence with the natural world, and impending ecological crisis. Tidal waves, earthquakes, and fires created scenes of disequilibrium — a world that appeared to be in free fall. When her cancer recurred in 1992, the subject of illness became an urgent fixture, starting her series Breast Cancer Journal: Walking with the Ghosts of My Grandmothers. Despite her health, Sigler remained resolute, positioning her work as a personal catharsis and a way to demystify the disease.