Anno's work redefines the boundaries of American abstract painting. Part
of a new generation of painters committed to illuminating personal notions
of abstraction, revisiting old tropes extracted from Modernist methods,
Anno's paintings are fierce and elegant extensions of pure color that meld
into the hollow surfaces of the wood. Anno infuses her paintings with an
intensely realized spiritual impulse, in an attempt to reclaim the
spontaneity and hushed beauty of a life at odds with "easy answers."
Anno's paintings invoke a relationship between illusion and abstraction.
The imagery posits a complicated balance of movement and line, how each
echoes the next, adorning the panels, which are themselves like timeless
bodies in space. The structures of the panels are inspired by Byzantine,
Islamic, Asian, and Native American architectural forms.
Anno seeks to articulate the vulnerability and expressiveness of the paint
itself, to investigate those places where the painting falls in on itself,
creating odd and unexpected digressions, points of sudden synthesis and
disruption. The work is reminiscent of hand woven textiles in that it not
only seeks out some inherent imperfection, but celebrates that imperfection.
The paintings strive to mediate the relationship between poetic vision and
cultural artifact.
Anno earned her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1985, and has
received the 1996 Western Regional Arts Federation / National Endowment for
the Arts fellowship; California Arts Council Grants annually from 1986 to
1990; Oakland Arts Council grants in 1986 & 1987; The Djerassi Foundation in
1995 and a 1996 City of Oakland public art commission. In 1999 she received
the San Francisco Arts Commission Fellowhship and a John S. and James L.
Knight Foundation Fellowship at Yaddo Corporation. Her work belongs to the
collections of the Oakland Museum, UC Berkeley, and the Brooklyn Museum.
She was also appointed Assistant Professor of Painting at the California
College of Arts and Crafts, 1999 as well as being included in the "1999
Biennial Invitational" at the Orange County Museum of Art, Newport, CA.