About this Artwork
Price: 400 EUR

This is about our place in a world that is changing at an ever faster rate.
The original page depicts two boys fishing. My response is not regarding the fishing itself, but instead an invitation to delve further into our own habits as humans, how we utilise the natural world and each other. The fish remain the focus, but the hands reach out for something that is now skeletal remains. It is as if we have lost our way, but are still reaching for the same rewards. We are surrounded by crises, but there are still cries for the world to wake up.

In times of deep crisis, we need solidarity and mutual support. The weaving of the paper represents our underlying reliance on one another. We are social beings, community being at the heart of our evolution, so why do we still fall prey to populist division and scape-goating? Societal breakdown is not obvious to all. It slowly seeps into our thinking and politics, in ways that for a long time are imperceptible. As humans we have the incredible capacity to adapt, but while we engross ourselves in the excitement of progress, we lose the ability to pause and reflect. This is a call to action, to understand our inherent need for community, to defend the communal realm and to understand that no struggle or crisis exists in isolation.

‘Until we are all free, none of us is free’, Emma Lazarus, 1883.

About Annie

I’m a self-taught artist from the UK. My work focuses on nature and humanity’s relationship with the living world. I play with human figures, flora and fauna to create images that question the intersection between humans and nature, which we are part of yet often feel detached from. My primary medium is currently cyanotypes, also using photography and pencil drawings to form the basis of much of my work.

This year I decided to take a break from full-time activist organising in order to dedicate more time to my artistic practice. Moreover, I’m discovering ways of channelling my ideas around environmental justice into my art. Rather than remaining separate, I think the two can be intrinsically linked and incredibly powerful.

The templates I create for my prints all originate from drawings, photographs, and pieces of organic material (flowers, leaves, seeds, soil etc). Cyanotype printing is fascinating because you are essentially at the whim of the weather. The intensity of the sun and cloud will create vastly different results. Though sometimes frustrating, it is also liberating – you can only plan up to that point!

Link to Annie’s Art Aviso profile HERE

Annie was provided with the following page from Newnes’ Pictorial Knowledge Encyclopedia:

Volume 9
Reading, writing and arithmetic
Five times three is fifteen