anna schwartz

Anna Schwartz's work exists as an evolving inquiry into the nature of loss and recovery. Working predominantly in painting, as well as inquiries in its expanded field, her practice investigates unfolding and insistent concerns and desires relating to feeling and circumstance. Her practice is grounded in questioning; mainly, regarding the nature of fragility and uncertainty, dependency and interconnectivity, relational states, and the poetic potential of repair in our current climate. 

She received her BFA from Syracuse University, after which she returned to her home in the mountains, where she worked as a studio assistant for the ceramicist Brian O'Hare. Alongside her practice, she has worked for People’s Action, Popular Democracy Institute, Bernie Sanders, and the Rights & Democracy Institute. 

Starting in 2019, Anna has undertaken numerous workshops and residencies throughout Italy under the instruction of the artists Kirsten Stromberg, Regan Wheat, Melissa Morris, and Rose Shakinovsky and Claire Gavronsky (known as rosenclaire). In 2021, she moved to New York City, where she joined the Brooklyn-based Vega Collective (now Maison Depot) and worked out of their Bed-Stuy studio. 

Anna was born in the heart of the White Mountains of New Hampshire. She is currently working on her masters thesis in fine arts practice at the University of Connecticut, where she teaches foundations drawing and figure drawing. 

statement

I grew up in a riparian zone, a place wild in nature and other than human where constructs of right and wrong fall to the side. I make things that are reflective of this concern. I arrange marks and color that communicate the divinity in doubt, that tease wonder and reverence. I listen for quietude in space and form, working to invite a salient guest. I notice fragments as parts of a whole — as necessary difference, as microcosm — as proof of the every-other-ness of all relations. Still, in the morning, I wake early to hum in harmony with the pale heat of the shadow of the mountain.