rik-rat corn pile

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

A Home for Ann Flowers.

"Dwell Here"
Searching for a home, attempting to find security in an insecure environment. Shrouded faces, anonymity, lovers, ex-lovers, cupcakes, and a sad ghost with a balloon. For all of those who have felt too hard or too much, this art will make sense. It speaks to our ability to obsess. Flower's work is, literally, dripping with ambivalence about the future, dripping with sweetness (the reoccurring cupcake we see below), and is dripping with color. But there's some hope in those houses. Its not all scary in her world.
Because I have known and loved Ann for so long I can say that her work is getting a "wow" out of me. Unconventional shapes, a new push of values, subtle collage, and a(n) (ironically) confidant hand (for someone who works with such awkward subject matter). During my Studio visit with Ann I was able to see the artistic growth that came from her recent personal growth. She is a true reminder that to make "good" art you have to live it, you gotta really understand your subject matter. Because if you don't get what you're doing it'll come off as forced and poorly informed. Ann understands love, hate, confusion, anxiety, humor, and craft...you can see it in her work.
And to honor the place where Ann has earned a lot of street cred, a portrait of the her in front of a graphite drawing of a lady riding DeKalb corn (and I think there's some barbed wire in there, god bless DeKalb). Ann has FLOWERED in a corn field and she better fucking keep me up to date about when her show/party is happening.
Check her out at http://abeautifulparty.blogspot.com/. From there check out her flickr site and etsy site. She's a badass.

4 comments:

  1. aw, thanks so much Jane! what a great write-up. Can I use your words in my thesis statement? can you write my thesis statement? I love you! and hey! that's not just any lady. that's Dekalb native Cindy Crawford. cant you see the mole?
    you're the best!

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  2. i didn't notice the mole...did you notice my spelling errors I'm about to correct?

    Yeah, any of my words are your words. If you ever wanna shoot your thesis my way I'll have a look through. But I can't help you with spelling.

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  3. I'd have to agree with all of the above. You are both wonderful passionate artists. Yay art!

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