Ann Vandervelde
BIO
ARTIST STATEMENT
Ann Vandervelde, Lopez Island, Washington artist, creates works that reflect structure, objects, texture, and color through observation and simply feeling the moment. Her materials are a mixture of papers, acrylics, oil pastels, and graphite. Shape takes form, and images appear and disappear like building a story, complete with a beginning, middle, and climax. For Vandervelde, the challenge is to accept that a composition is never quite done, that it has the capacity to evolve and change and be understood separately from the initial vision.
"I have always believed that paintings are a form of language. An image elicits immediate dialogue between itself and the viewer and it is not essential (sometimes counterintuitive) to understand what the artist was thinking/feeling at the moment of creation. A painting has a life that draws upon others’ experiences and that is what makes it so powerful."
"My painting….
has gone through many genres and multiple media. I have moved from watercolour to collage with poured inks and on to acrylics and oil pastel. I’ve played with papers, Bristol board, and canvas. I am always struck by the complexities of life and I have attempted in my painting to pare down those structures into something simple and readable; an image that the viewer can relate to on a personal level.
Nature, of course, plays such a huge role in my work. I am fascinated by the repetitive shapes, the rhythms, the curves and angles, and the lights and darks of life. We tend to take for granted so much of what we see and we usually see images as large whole compositions. Like a scientist or naturalist I think it’s important to take something apart; break it down into pieces and then bit by bit reshape. As a former English teacher, I used to take my students outside in the fall and ask them to look at a grand old maple or oak tree before an initial writing assignment. What did they see? At first, they only saw the whole – the leaves, the branches, the trunk, all neatly connected. I then asked them to look between the leaves, at the light playing behind. What about the patterns that the sweeping branches produced? If they merely seized upon a frame within a frame, how did that change the whole? I asked them to create a window using just a fragment and describe what they then saw. It was an exercise that bore marvelous descriptions and stemmed from their own personal experiences. They were quite surprised.
Visually I am drawn to fractured elements, like the myriad fragments that make up our complex daily lives. We are layered, not unlike landscapes, rock formations, fields of wildflowers, and cityscapes. If one views our planet from above it is so beautifully carved and etched and patterned. My job is to capture that moment, that mystery expressed in color and texture.
I am now in my 70s and find that I am the most creative I have ever been, more willing to experiment, and more driven to produce. Born after WWII I’ve seen the collapse of world orders and the beginnings of new as history repeats and repeats itself. Artists, I believe, play a vital role in the observation and emotional response to this story. Mine is of walking in the woods, on the beach, snorkeling with sea life, and watching the resurgence of spring. It is color, texture, and energy that I feel from this sensory wealth that I try to bring to my paintings and share with the viewer."
EDUCATION
M.Ed. in Education Penn State University
Post Graduate work - Media New York University/University of London, UK
B.S. in Fine Art University of Wisconsin
HONORS AND AWARDS
Museum of Northwest Art MoNA
Collaborative exhibition designed to highlight climate change and its impact in the Northwest.
8 Vandervelde paintings were part of the exhibit 2018-19
Gallery 110 Annual Juried International Show, Seattle 2013
Whiteley Resident Scholar, University of Washington, Friday Harbor, WA 2010
PRESENTATIONS
Collaborative Exhibit, Matzke Gallery, Camano Island, WA
Readings of poetry works by Anne McDuffie written to interpret glass (Lin McJunkin/Scot Milo) and paintings (Ann Vandervelde)
Exhibition, Lopez Island, WA
“Harmonics - Art Accessible to All”
Design A Life Conference Speaker
“Art and Poetry for Special Populations” Cleveland State University
International Diabetes Conference
“The Inner Eye: Paintings and Their Perceptions” Alexandria, Egypt
PAINTING DONATIONS
Coyote Central (art instruction for children from Seattle inner city)
Coyotecentral.org
2017, 2018, 2019
HOSPICE, Lopez Island
2019
SOLO SHOW JULY 2020
Globe Fine Art, Santa Fe, New Mexico
RECENT AND CURRENT EXHIBITS/COLLABORATIONS
November/December 2019
Trinky Busiu Gallery
2019
“Forests and Our Future”
Scott Milo Gallery
Anacortes, WA
2018-2019
La Conner Art Museum
Washington
2017
“Imaginary Borders”
Petley-Jones Gallery, Vancouver BC
Ann Vandervelde and Debra Van Tuinen
2016
“This World is Maya” composition for quartet with electric soundscape by composer Janika Vandervelde and paintings to be performed in St. Paul MN in February
GBD Architects, Portland, OR
Glass and paintings by McJunkin and Vandervelde
2015
“Narrating Earth”
Burien Arts Association, Burien WA
Glass, poetry, paintings of McJunkin, McDuffie, Vandervelde
Karla Matzke Gallery, Camano Island, WA
Glass/metal, poetry, paintings of McJunkin, White, McDuffie, Vandervelde
“Itinerant” — Works inspired by the World
Bellingham Gallery, WA
“Harmonics” at The Hamlet, Lopez Island, WA
Gallery IMA, Seattle – Group show
2014
Orcas Island Art Center
“Unbalanced Nature” Collaboration of glass, poetry, painting
“Deep Geography” combines the art forms of poet, Anne McDuffie, composer, Janika Vandervelde, and painter, Ann Vandervelde to bring together senses, perspectives and sound interpretations to showcase dynamics and tensions between rural and urban environments.
Exhibit at Gallery IMA, January 2013
“Deep Geography” portions shown and read at Writers’ Craft, Seattle Public Library December 13, 2012
“Harmonics” – Artistic design in symbiotic relationship with nature
A collaboration in eight canvases between Ann Vandervelde and architect David Vandervort www.vandervort.com made possible by a grant from The Whiteley Center, University Washington. 2012
EXHIBITS/JURIED SHOWS
Childhood’s End Gallery, Olympia WA 2016
Matzke Art Gallery, Camano Island 2016 (Pugent Sound Group juried exhibit)
Burien Art Gallery Burien WA 2015
Matzke Art Gallery, Camano Island, WA 2015
“A Pool of Life Reflecting Water” Petley-Jones Gallery, Vancouver BC 2013
Collective Visions Gallery, Bremerton 2013
“Deep Geography” – Gallery IMA, Seattle 2013
Group exhibition – Gallery IMA, Seattle 2012
2 person exhibit – Gallery IMA 2011
Juried exhibit – “Interpreting Climate Change” – Department of Ecology, WA 2011
Juried exhibit – EAFA – The Design Center, Seattle 2011
2 person exhibit – The Petley-Jones Gallery, Vancouver, BC 2010
Evans Sculpture Gallery, Nantucket, MA 2010
The Petley-Jones Gallery, Vancouver, BC
Broderick Gallery, Portland OR
Fiori Gallery, Cleveland, OH
Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH
Loch Haven State University Museum, PA
Hershey Medical Center, Hershey, PA
Museum of Art, Roanoke, PA
National Watercolor Society, PA
National Watercolor Society, CA
Women’s Center, Jacksonville, FL 2004-2009
PUBLICATIONS
Hera and Hebe
Poems and Paintings
Evalyn Vandervelde and Ann Vandervelde
ISBN: 978-‐0-‐615-‐28567-‐2
Available on Amazon.com
Discoveries 2013 (cover art)
University of Washington
Department of Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine Annual Journal
CORPORATE CLIENTS
University of Washington, Orthopaedics Department
The Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland
The Cleveland State University
Cleveland Art Association
Key Bank
American Diabetes Association
Cleveland Institute of Music
NASA Glenn Space Center, OH
NOVEL, Munich, Germany
US Government Art in Embassies Program
Artist Archives, Cleveland, OH
The Penn State University