ARTIST STATEMENT
I am a visual artist and identity is the center of my research. I am invested in learning about my family’s heritage, showcasing the importance of exchanged stories, examining heirlooms made by my grandmothers, and collecting family, photographic archives. Photography is integral to my practice: I use it to document, reference, and preserve memories.
In August of 2020, I moved away from Cleveland, Ohio for the first time to start graduate school and focus on my artistic practice during the heat of the pandemic. As I said goodbye to my 89-year-old grandmother, I wondered when we’d be able to hug and see each other again. I am submitting a photograph from the series, “A Sunday Summer”, that documented the last time I spent a day alone with my grandmother since the pandemic. Within this image, I evoke the feeling of stillness, care, and reassurance through the gesture of her hand on my leg. I’ve reflected on this image many times this year away in Madison, Wisconsin and long for a moment like this again. In a time where there is so much uncertainty, conflict, and impermanence, I hope to offer viewers to my work an interlude.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Annmarie Suglio currently lives in Madison, WI as an MFA candidate in Studio Art at the University Of Wisconsin-Madison. She is a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Art earning her Bachelor in Fine Arts degrees in Fiber + Material Studies and Sculpture in 2015.
After graduation, Suglio took on many curatorial roles: from 2015-2018 she was curator of The Sunroom, exhibiting artists who explore and experiment in a domestic space, and from 2015-2019 was Gallery Director of Praxis Fiber Workshop, a non-profit organization designed to revitalize the field of Fiber Art in Cleveland, Ohio. In 2018, Annmarie was Administrative Assistant for FRONT International, Cleveland’s first art triennial in Cleveland. She has shown work mostly in Northeast Ohio and will be exhibiting at Filter Photo in Chicago this late September.
© Annmarie Suglio