Anna Buckner: And other Myths
July 20, 2024 – February 22, 2025 | Cannon Gallery
Anna Buckner is a painter in the most expanded sense. An interdisciplinary artist and maker, she creates compositions at the intersection of textile patterning, graphic design, and painting. And other Myths is a body of work that leverages the storytelling potential of quilting within the context of painterly composition and design precision. The works defy easy categorization, blending the enticing textures and nostalgic palettes of found fabric with the elevated presentation of a stretched canvas. These images are deeply personal yet universally resonant in their spare iconography.
And other Myths speaks to the all-too-human impulse to self-mythologize. To mythologize is to place something—objects, narratives, or even ourselves—within the stratosphere of the gods, a universal framework to make sense of the challenging and unknown. We tell ourselves stories about our actions and their motivations in an effort to understand our choices and, hopefully, make wiser ones in the future. Buckner self-mythologizes in these quilt paintings to navigate the complexities of new motherhood, finding meaning in the both joyful and overwhelming experience of new life and parenthood. Her studio practice is marked by a self-conscious interrogation of the prevailing systems of logic in painting, language, fiber, and education. In this body of work, she turns that perceptive eye around and onto herself.
Anna Buckner (b. 1989, North Carolina, USA) received her MFA from Indiana University in 2016 and a BFA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2012. Her works have been exhibited in museums and galleries nationally with recent shows at The Mint Museum (Charlotte, NC), Brandt Roberts Gallery (Columbus, OH), Bad Water (Knoxville, TN), Blue Spiral Gallery (Asheville, NC), and Kathryn Markel (New York, NY). Her work has been published in multiple catalogs and galleries, including Textiel Plus (Netherlands), New American Paintings (USA), and New York Magazine (USA). She has been an artist in residence at Unlisted Projects (Austin, TX), Design Inquiry (Vinalhaven, ME), and Konstepedimen (Gothenburg, Sweden).