Anna Gaskell
| Anna Gaskell | |
|---|---|
| Born |
October 22, 1969 Des Moines, Iowa, United States |
| Nationality | American |
| Known for | Photography |
| Website |
www |
Anna Gaskell (born October 22, 1969[1]) is an American art photographer from Des Moines, Iowa[2] who is considered part of the "Yale School", having studied under Gregory Crewdson.[3] After studying for two years at Bennington College,[2] she received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1992.[4] In 1995, she received her MFA from Yale University School of Arts.[4] She is best known for her photographic series “Elliptical Narratives”. She lives and works in New York.[2]
Artistic practice
Gaskell describes her early practice of "taking pictures of myself, but I didn't really enjoy it...I had these personal stories that I wanted to tell. So I thought I'd have someone play a familiar character and then I could twist that, combine it with things related to it, and I'd be telling a completely different story."[5] In haunting photographic scenes of preadolescent girls, Gaskell alludes to well known children's literature, such as Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, which can be found in two of her series: wonder (1996–97) and override (1997). Gaskell stages all of her scenes, using the style of "narrative photography," meaning that each scene exists only to be photographed. Even within each series, the photographs are not linear. There are gaps of space and time left between each photograph, evoking a "vivid and dreamlike world."[6] In wonder (1996–97), the first series Gaskell created after receiving her MFA at Yale University School of Art,[7] two identically dressed Alices are photographed together and separately and at oblique angles that recall the disorienting experiences of Alice in Wonderland.[8] The artist also displays an instability in Alice through the use of different sized photographs which may refer to the growth spurts and shrinking spells she experiences in Carroll's novel. In override (1997) allusions to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland are seen through seven versions of Alice which alternate between roles of victim and aggressor. A description about the series written by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation states, "They try to control the changes to Alice's body by literally, physically holding her in place -- a potent metaphor for the anxiety and confusion experienced by children on the verge of adolescence."[6] In hide (1998) her photographs of young girls alone in a Gothic mansion, create a sense of dread and underlying sexual intrigue that takes its impetus from the tale of a young woman forced to hide beneath animal skins to hide from the matrimonial desires of her father.[8]
Exhibitions
Gaskell's first solo exhibition was at Casey Kaplan Gallery in New York in 1997. Her work has been shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Miami (1998), White Cube in London (1999 and 2002), Aspen Art Museum in Aspen, Colorado (2000), Castello di Rivoli in Rivoli, Italy (2001), the Menil Collection in Houston (2002), Art Unlimited in Basel (2005), and The Box at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio (2007).[2]
Awards
References
- ↑ "Anna Gaskell". Artnet.com. November 23, 2013. Retrieved November 23, 2013.
- 1 2 3 4 "Anna Gaskell". Guggenheim Collection Online. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Retrieved 9 February 2016.
- ↑ Higgins, Jackie (2013). Why It Does Not Have to Be in Focus. Prestel. pp. 136–137. ISBN 978-3-7913-4851-3.
- 1 2 3 "Gaskell, Anna." Benezit Dictionary of Artists. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 17 Mar. 2014.
- ↑ Hay, David (September 29, 2002). "Photographs on a Wall, Doors to a Haunted Manor". New York Times. Retrieved 30 March 2014.
- 1 2 Moving Pictures: Contemporary Photography and Video from the Guggenheim Museum Collections. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. 2003. ISBN 0-89207-269-5.
- ↑ Hofmann, Irene E (2005). Bits & Pieces Put Together to Present a Semblance of a Whole: Walker Art Center Collections. Minneapolis, MN: Walker Art Center.
- 1 2 Nancy Spector, "The Fiction of Fiction: An Exquisite Unease," in Anna Gaskell (NY: powerHouse Books: 2001) ISBN 1-57687-069-3.
- ↑ Nancy Graves Foundation. http://www.nancygravesfoundation.org/grants.html
External links
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