ARTIST STATEMENT
My artwork has always had its primary basis in nature. I work in several media, both intuitively and literally, sometimes in the same composition. Stylistically, I like clear, well-crafted detail and tasteful ambiguity. Versatility in style and media has given me options, as some media are better at expressing certain sensations and emotions than others. For instance, watercolor is well-suited to capturing the veil-like layers expressive of vaginal hunger depicted in “Dance of the Seven Veils,” a reference to Salome, the naughty young woman who danced for her father, King Herod Antipas, during a feast on his birthday. After that, she asked that the head of John the Baptist to be brought to her on a platter. In this work, the viewer is brought to a central point. Exploring my own sexuality in art is not something my work is usually associated with. However, it is unabashedly part of me as a woman and I am grateful for the opportunity to show this work and give validity to those too-often-hidden feelings.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
The youngest of four sisters, I was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan and grew up in South Haven, Michigan in the country. I attribute early experiences of immersion in nature to why I reference nature frequently as subject matter, literally and metaphorically. In 1976, I received my BA in Studio Art from Principia College, Elsah, Illinois and my MFA in Painting from Bowling Green State University in Ohio in 1980. That year, I moved to the Pilsen neighborhood in Chicago where I now own a Victorian home. I have taught art at Ripon College in Ripon, Wisconsin, Moraine Valley Community College in Palos Hills, IL, and the International Academy of Design and Technology in Chicago. In recent years I have taken numerous ceramic workshops at Lillstreet Studios, originally to augment my mural work. Little did I know that pounding clay would become a passion! Nature-based murals are an important aspect of my production, like “Blue Skies, Red Sunsets, and Golden Opportunities,” a mural in ceramic, mosaic and paint I designed and coordinated with over 500 participants in Wichita Falls, Texas in 2017. Several private and public collections throughout the United States include my works. Among them Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, New Jersey, the Kalamazoo Institute of Art, the Rockford Art Museum in Rockford, IL, and the Wichita Falls Museum of Art in Texas. I am currently designing a 17-foot by 8.5-foot art installation for Second Church of Christ, Scientist in Chicago created from sections of the Church’s former dome.
© Anne Farley Gaines