Anne Gilman

STATEMENT
For over 25 years, I have made work that addresses the psychological affects of change, loss, illness, divorce and trauma. I am using my own experiences and the behavior of others I observe both around me and in the public domain as a catalyst for looking at challenges that exist across many layers of society: intense anger, feelings of invisibility, and lack of agency over what is possible for us in a lifetime.

I do this by writing extemporaneously on lines that I’ve incised with ½ inch spacing across the width of the page. I use a variety of materials, layers of color, rubbings, texture, and tape to translate emotional states of being into expanses of rock, sky, water or aerial landscapes. I use broken pieces of metal to abrade the paper and softer pencils to create a “safe” space in the drawing.

I vary the formats I use to include large-scale works that hang on the wall, suspend from the ceiling out into the space of a room, or, more recently, lie on the floor with handmade sculptural objects. The addition of sculptural elements made of glass, plaster and sand is an outgrowth of my interest in providing multiple entry points for a viewer to access my work and the ideas imbedded in it.

These large-scale drawings have lead to artist book projects, works in intaglio and woodcut, and multi-panel installations.

BIOGRAPHY
Anne Gilman is a Brooklyn-based artist whose large-scale drawings, multi-panel projects and artist books map information, thought, and emotion. Current projects include scrolls made on mulberry paper and works mixing layers of pigment, text and ink.

Anne Gilman’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally including solo exhibitions “At the still point of the turning world” at Anne Reid Gallery in Princeton; “Up close/ in the distance/ now”, at the Birmingham Bloomfield Art Center, outside of Detroit; “In any one day, how all the things get mixed together”, at Five Points Center for the Visual Arts in Torrington/CT; and “Descifrar/ to decipher, decode, figure out”, at Instituto Cervantes in NY where she created a floor drawing onsite incorporating noise, conversations, and interactions with visitors as part of the work, and at Casa Cristo (de Luís Barragán) in Guadalajara/Mexico; Galería Raúl Martínez in Havana/Cuba; University of the Arts in Philadelphia; and group shows at Lesley Heller Gallery/NYC; Central Features Contemporary Art, Albuquerque/NM; Kentler International Drawing Space, Brooklyn/NY; Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville/ NY; The Center for Book Arts/NY; New Orleans Center for Creative Arts; Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts, Wilmington/DE; Azerbaijan Museum, Baku/Azerbaijan; Cité Internationale des Arts /Paris; and Berliner Medizinhisthorisches Museum der Charité, Berlin/Germany.

She has received fellowships from MacDowell, the Edward Albee Foundation, Chenven Foundation and The Cultural Space Studio Program in Dumbo/Brooklyn. Her work has been featured in Hyperallergic, Art Spiel, Bomb Magazine, Vasari21, TECA/ Testimonianze Editoria Cultura Arte, Guernica Magazine, and Publishing Perspectives and is in the collections of The National Museum of Women in the Arts, The Brooklyn Museum, New York Public Library, Azerbaijan Museum, and The Library of Congress. A bilingual version of her artist book, Frayed Edges, was published by Ediciones Vigía in Matanzas/Cuba and her artist book, “this place/this hour,” was included in an exhibition at The Center for Book Arts commemorating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Walt Whitman in 2019.

Her next solo exhibition will open 12/4/22 and run through 1/22/23 at Five Myles Gallery in Brooklyn.

Anne Gilman’s Website