ARTIST STATEMENT
In my painting, drawing and ceramic works I love to work mostly with organic forms, although I am extremely competent in the rendering of architectural elements and work in an almost machine-like manner of accuracy and precision while having to produce studies for murals. In allowing myself to let loose and not be too “exact,” my hands become conduits to feelings while working with the human figure, animals, plants, and sea creatures. It gives me great pleasure when abstraction creeps in and I allow it to “happen!”
It is an increasingly vulnerable world that we live in and I share in feelin vulnerable most of the time. Making art and singing, as well, a talent I have resurrected, helps me to stay strong while contemplating happenings in the news that make no sense at all to me. Being in nature, and interpreting it, is a comfort. It gives great solace. I dream of a world that is safe for all children to live in as well as adults.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Anne Farley Gaines received a BA in Studio Art from Principia College, Elsah, Illinois in 1976 and an MFA in Painting from BowIing Green State University, Bowling Green, OH, in 1980. Gaines, resident of Chicago’s Pilsen community, is versatile in several media, mostly watercolor and mixed-media. She also works in ceramic, mosaic, acrylic and oil, media in which she has designed and executed several murals. Some murals are solo efforts, others have been collaborative, one for which she received a Neighborhood Arts Program Grant and had over 100 collaborators, mostly women from a shelter, another with 500 participants in Wichita Falls, TX. That was how she became interested in creating ceramic plaques. For other murals, like the “Continuous Growth” series in ceramic, mosaic, and paint with youths at the Maxwell Street Community Garden in Chicago, she received a grant in 2020 from the Chicago Housing Consulting Services and in 2021 an Illinois Arts Program Grant from the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. Currently, Gaines is the lead artist for a large mural project for the city of Glenview, IL, for which she wrote, and was awarded, a grant from the Arts Alliance of Illinois.
© Anne Farley Gaines