For her first exhibition with the New Gallery of Modern Art, Anne Austin Pearce brings together a new grouping of collages that strive to illustrate those moments for which there is no distinct emotional adjective to employ. She represents these abstract moments by applying various media to panel or paper in an abstract collage of sensations and textures.
Anne was born in Lawrence, Kansas and studied art at the Kansas City Art Institute, Brighton Polytechnic, and the University of Kansas. In 1993, she received a full scholarship to James Madison University and received an MFA in drawing and painting. Her work has been recently acquired by the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art and the Spencer Museum of Art.
She describes her latest work as “informed by stories of Africa told to me by my father before going to sleep. These stories remain larger than life to this day. Each night, floating on a story/myth recollected and transposed on top of my own psyche, formed an imaginary world in which I inhabited. These stories are a foundation and were built upon by the likes of David Attenborough, Margaret Attwood, and Wallace Stevens. Eventually and much later my own travels to Malaysia, Mexico, Mauritius, France, and Italy began to further shape my delight in the shared geographical and natural space on earth with other cultures and creatures. Reality encompasses the sublime but the sublime remains hidden to the uninitiated. The gate is open. I will walk through and cast off my separateness. I will transmute ignorance into lucidity.”
The opening reception with the artist is Thursday, July 13, 2017, from 6-8pm.
