ARTIST STATEMENT
I am a text-based artist whose visual works promote speculative discourse about cultural norms and values as a contemplative exercise centered on racial disparity. I imagine a world in which all people strive to free each other from the constraints society imposes on us as well as those we use to define each other. I write in order to establish deeper and broader awarenesses about how social barriers and cultural differences serve to marginalize and divide people. Each speculative conversation is couched in historical and political contexts designed to create a narrative around the current state of our freedoms.
My speculative journey ties current and past works together through subjects about the underdog, family and daily experiences and through a variety of print mediums which include photo-collage, letterpress, screen printing and xerography. I enjoy layering text and poetry into my mediums to thematically explore the historical perspective each piece focuses on. As an artistic exercise, I also dabble with technologies which produce alternative rhythms, inflections and movements.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Hello. As the owner of AW Poetics, I freelance in the field of poetics. I employ systematic amalgamations of both visual and written art forms in order to transform historical narratives into time-based reflections of cultural enclaves locally, regionally and globally while striving to draw attention to issues regarding racial disparity.
I am a 2024 MFA recipient from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). In addition to my SAIC MFA, my graduate work with the University of Iowa Writer’s program, circa 2022, is a capstone achievement which followed nearly a decade of work through the University of Iowa Summer Writer’s Workshop. I completed my undergraduate degree in English with John Carroll University and am a devoted wife of thirty-six years and a proud mother of two young adults.
I am based in Chicago, Il, USA. My email is ann@awpoetics.net.
© Ann Wachter