• Anne Farrell •

I’ve been an artist all my life. I didn’t take the prescribed road of going to art school. Instead I studied the classics (dead white men) of western thought, though I sure don’t remember much. After that, hit the road to N.M. and studied with Jorge Fick. Taking away everything except a 2B pencil he set about teaching me to draw, successfully, I might add. Later he gave me an eraser.

The next big thing was meeting a mouse and feeling like this was my true medium. Leaving brushes behind I began to make movies and draw on the computer. Now I am rediscovering the analog world, integrating drawing, painting and pixels.

I also make paper dolls, stickers, do video installations and SFX for movies. To see an installation and video of Your Mother's House, go to videographicarts.com.

Little Guy Drawings — The images in this series came to me one at a time, popping into my head completely formed and then I had to draw them. Altogether they construct a pictorial narrative of the workings of my inner processing during a time of transition. They are small and detailed, and the creation process involves both analog and electronic drawing, scanning, more drawing, printing and more drawing, with some actual cutting and pasting (scissors and glue).

4” by 6” mixed media

Mannequins — These are people from other realms. You don’t know who they are, or what worlds they inhabit. They hail from the far reaches of the collective imagination, providing a glimpse into a mirror reflecting the unexpected. Some of the images have been animated into slow moving loops, motionless moments from distant yet possible futures. The source material ranges from synthetic to extremely diverse captured sources, pixel mashed and integrated into brand new territory.

The still images are 27” x 36” archival inkjet prints Limited edition of 10
The animations are presented on large flat panel LCDs.

Littles — These images continue my exploration into other worlds, now using photographically based content. Though based in “real” content, these images become totally synthetic, allowing me to probe the diminutive and mysterious, subtly manipulating them to reveal and enhance the amazing drama, humor and inscrutability inherent in these scenes, at the same time demonstrating some of the strange power of pixel land to explore and create new visions.

They are printed in archival, large format, limited editions, minimum size 27” x 20”.

Moving Images — This page shows 5 of the major animated shorts that I have created since starting to work with digital video in 1992 when QuickTime first came out. It also links to a set of animated drawings created using Apple's Motion software.

Little Guys — These diminutive images explore the degradation of information while building quiet, modest worlds that move in their own slow time. There is no high drama, just a little tension between the figures and their surroundings.

The original source material playfully pulls from diverse and unrestrained sources. It is intentionally degraded, expanded and blurred, creating the softness in these spaces. In the end, the images are about loneliness and isolation as the inhabitants move through wide empty worlds.

4” by 6” archival inkjet prints Limited edition of 10

Icons — These drawings are part of a developing vocabulary of images to be used in drawings and movies. They are what Plato refers to as eidos (εἶδος) forms of objects. They represent our, or really, my idea of a dog or a chair. They are imbued with the aura of thought. They are most real without being real at all.

I let the deep reaches of the collective unconscious speak through the mark of the crayon. The drawings started as tiny pen and ink thought drawings. They were ingested into the electronic world, processed and spit out again, increased in size twenty-fold. Then the painting began. One of a kind, mixed media on archival paper. 17” x 22”

Installations — This link connects to seven video installations. In all of these, the movie itself is just one component of an complete sculptural installation. Live action performance has recently become an additional component.

iDrawings — The iPad provides a perfect merging ground for the hand drawn line and electronic capture. This series moves from the initial iPhone drawings, into the more accomplished, higher resolution iPad images. They are not computer generated or manipulated. They are done directly on the device, with commonly available software and my finger. Printed archivally using pigment ink and rag paper in signed and numbered limited editions. More drawings are archived here.

Puppet Dolls — These puppet dolls embody the fun stuff from childhood play that we want to have in the studio while they are, no doubt, parts of the self that need to be made manifest. They do have a character of simplicity while still manifesting the enjoyment of working with material and accepting what works. Perhaps one day they will star in a movie. In the meantime, they can play on their own. Sometimes they travel with me. Some of them have gotten us in trouble.

Illustration — I have been working with Thomas K. Simpson for a number of years. First, doing the diagrammatic images for his book, Maxwell on the Electromagnetic Field: A Guided Study (Masterworks of Discovery). Currently I am working with him to help him develop images for his new book which seeks to present an intuitive way for visualizing the world of four dimensions.

Represented by Hirsch Fine Art.

Contact me at annebfarrell at yahoo dot com