Friday, December 5, 2008

"Sunday May 7, 2006" 2007 by Anna Plesset FRESH PICKS V1E5


"Sunday May 7, 2006" is the provocative fifth edition in the first FRESH PICKS volume. This contemporary trompe l'oeil oil painting is part of a series by the artist, Anna Plesset, that involves isolating and recontextualizing cut-out headlines from newspapers.

Anna says that her work "is a response to the anxiety of modern life. By working on multiple ongoing painting and drawing projects, I attempt to domesticate the surplus of objects and signifiers that we continually navigate on a daily basis: newspaper headlines, email subject lines, bus tickets, dates, found objects, time, etc. At first glance, my paintings and drawings appear to be deliberate, ordered, precise, and resolved; in a sense they seem to tame the very objects and signifiers they contain."

Her work has a strong focus on time and its many dimensions. In her various ongoing projects, some of the issues she has been addressing include: how narratives evolve, ways to account for the passage of time, how to address her own productivity and artistic output, and how our perception of objects, signifiers and artwork itself changes over time.

A key project in this exploration of time is a series of daily drawings that that she has been working on for over three years. Since March 2005, she has recorded the days she works in her studio by filling out standard timecards and making one drawing each day she goes to her studio.

Now Vancouver-based, Anna is originally from New York and received her BFA from Cornell University. In 1999, she was named Artist of Promise by the Cornell Council for the Arts and received the Faculty Medal in Art for greatest promise of future achievement. Since relocating to Vancouver in 2003, she has exhibited her work in New York, Chicago and Vancouver.

Now Vancouver-based, Anna is originally from New York and received her BFA from Cornell University. In 1999, she was named Artist of Promise by the Cornell Council for the Arts and received the Faculty Medal in Art for greatest promise of future achievement. Since relocating to Vancouver in 2003, she has exhibited her work in New York, Chicago and Vancouver. She has recently been included in the show “Hybrid” at Seattle’s Center on Contemporary Art and is preparing for a solo show with Vancouver’s Jeffrey Boone Gallery in 2009. For more information: www.annaplesset.com.