ANNA FINE FOER
Biography
Anna Fine Foer decided she was going to be an artist when she was 11, when she lived in Paris for a summer visiting every museum and gallery.
While a fibers major at Philadelphia College of Art (UArts) she became fascinated by the relationship between maps and the land they represent, depicted in collage. After emigrating to Israel, Anna worked as a textile conservator in Haifa and Tel-Aviv. She studied at the Courtauld Institute in London and received a Post-Graduate Diploma in Textile Conservation. Anna worked in conservation for the Textile Museum in Washington, D.C and as a freelance textile conservator.
Anna now lives in Baltimore and has two adult sons. Her work has been exhibited at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Maryland Governor’s Mansion, and the Israeli Embassy, and is in the permanent collection of the Haifa Museum of Art and the Beer-Sheva Biblical Museum. She was awarded a prize for the Encouragement of Young Artists for work exhibited in the Artist’s House in Jerusalem and received a Maryland State Arts Council Grant for Individual Artists in 2008, 2016 and 2021.
www.annafineart.com
Project Description
Compensation for Loss
Compensation for Loss is a creative research collage series investigating the complex relationships between human/other animals and the shifting categories of extinction and species collapse set within landscapes constantly being altered by global transformations of climate and capitalism. Visual expression of these elements enhances animal advocacy.
The exhibition and associated events will highlight the intersection of art and science and how one may inform the other and facilitate a dialogue between the two disciplines that often ask the same questions and reach conclusions in different ways. The theme of the exhibition should attract scientists, environmentalists, people of all ages who are concerned with species collapse and extinction and what can be done to remedy this dire consequence of human activity. Furthermore, my anachronistic approach will accentuate how scientific inquiry has advanced since the Age of Exploration.
Each composition depicts a different aspect of damage to a specific species, for example: Shooting Gallery is about the overzealous hunting of passenger pigeons while Titian Peale’s Reveal illustrates parthenogenesis in the California condor.
I aim to demonstrate how my creative blending of science can spark new understandings and insights into the often complex, destructive forces at work in our time, how they contribute to species collapse and what we may do as homosapiens to exist in harmony with fellow species, whether in urban or rural settings.
Too often when artists and scientists collaborate, science takes center stage and the artist is tasked with illustrating the discovery. I posit that art can inform science just as science informs art.
For this project, the collage material is reproductions of images made by my hand, rather than downloaded off the internet. Watercolours based on historic illustrations of animals typical of those in a curio cabinet are digitally copied and altered to be used as the imagery to be cut and pasted. These studies will be part of the exhibition.
I will explore the best way to work with the exhibition space to present a contemporary version of a curio cabinet including experimentation with projected imagery onto a gallery wall. This will be my first opportunity to work more freely with the exhibition space and collaborate with the Peale community, cultural stakeholders.
The Peale is the most appropriate venue for this installation referencing Peale’s original museum displays and attractions, it is a laboratory for museum practice, a production house of culture and community, developing and testing new models for access, inclusion, and sustainability.
The audience will learn that not all extinctions are the same; species collapse or population bottlenecks occurred at inflection points; some species survived, thrived and dominated. Optimistically, species will survive current climate turbulence, humans will adapt to live harmoniously with our fellow species; flora and fauna alike.
Biography
Anna Fine Foer decided she was going to be an artist when she was 11, when she lived in Paris for a summer visiting every museum and gallery.
While a fibers major at Philadelphia College of Art (UArts) she became fascinated by the relationship between maps and the land they represent, depicted in collage. After emigrating to Israel, Anna worked as a textile conservator in Haifa and Tel-Aviv. She studied at the Courtauld Institute in London and received a Post-Graduate Diploma in Textile Conservation. Anna worked in conservation for the Textile Museum in Washington, D.C and as a freelance textile conservator.
Anna now lives in Baltimore and has two adult sons. Her work has been exhibited at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Maryland Governor’s Mansion, and the Israeli Embassy, and is in the permanent collection of the Haifa Museum of Art and the Beer-Sheva Biblical Museum. She was awarded a prize for the Encouragement of Young Artists for work exhibited in the Artist’s House in Jerusalem and received a Maryland State Arts Council Grant for Individual Artists in 2008, 2016 and 2021.
www.annafineart.com
Project Description
Compensation for Loss
Compensation for Loss is a creative research collage series investigating the complex relationships between human/other animals and the shifting categories of extinction and species collapse set within landscapes constantly being altered by global transformations of climate and capitalism. Visual expression of these elements enhances animal advocacy.
The exhibition and associated events will highlight the intersection of art and science and how one may inform the other and facilitate a dialogue between the two disciplines that often ask the same questions and reach conclusions in different ways. The theme of the exhibition should attract scientists, environmentalists, people of all ages who are concerned with species collapse and extinction and what can be done to remedy this dire consequence of human activity. Furthermore, my anachronistic approach will accentuate how scientific inquiry has advanced since the Age of Exploration.
Each composition depicts a different aspect of damage to a specific species, for example: Shooting Gallery is about the overzealous hunting of passenger pigeons while Titian Peale’s Reveal illustrates parthenogenesis in the California condor.
I aim to demonstrate how my creative blending of science can spark new understandings and insights into the often complex, destructive forces at work in our time, how they contribute to species collapse and what we may do as homosapiens to exist in harmony with fellow species, whether in urban or rural settings.
Too often when artists and scientists collaborate, science takes center stage and the artist is tasked with illustrating the discovery. I posit that art can inform science just as science informs art.
For this project, the collage material is reproductions of images made by my hand, rather than downloaded off the internet. Watercolours based on historic illustrations of animals typical of those in a curio cabinet are digitally copied and altered to be used as the imagery to be cut and pasted. These studies will be part of the exhibition.
I will explore the best way to work with the exhibition space to present a contemporary version of a curio cabinet including experimentation with projected imagery onto a gallery wall. This will be my first opportunity to work more freely with the exhibition space and collaborate with the Peale community, cultural stakeholders.
The Peale is the most appropriate venue for this installation referencing Peale’s original museum displays and attractions, it is a laboratory for museum practice, a production house of culture and community, developing and testing new models for access, inclusion, and sustainability.
The audience will learn that not all extinctions are the same; species collapse or population bottlenecks occurred at inflection points; some species survived, thrived and dominated. Optimistically, species will survive current climate turbulence, humans will adapt to live harmoniously with our fellow species; flora and fauna alike.