Design and Art Australia Online

Multi media artist, Anna Glynn’s work includes painting, drawing, sculpture, writing, music, sound, installation and theatre. Her art investigates the connection to the land and the memories and stories that resonate within a place.

She began her arts practice in the mid 1980s in Melbourne, before moving to Sydney and then to the Shoalhaven region in 1989. In 1993 she worked for 12 months with Australian artist Arthur Boyd, an experience that dramatically changed her attitude towards art and prompted the development of a new love for oil painting and printmaking. An exhibition of her paintings was held at “Riversdale”, part of the Bundanon Trust, at the invitation of Boyd.

Glynn’s earlier works were across a number of media including silk, sculpture and textiles. In 1988 & 1990 her work was selected for the Tamworth National Fibre Exhibition where it was collected by the gallery and formed part of a touring exhibition. In 1991 her work formed part of an international exhibition to the Kyoto Museum in Japan.
In 1995 Glynn spent the year working with rural and isolated communities, collecting stories that related to the droving routes of her Irish great grandfather. The series of paintings that resulted from this research became a touring exhibition in 1997 called 'Landscapes and Lives’ which travelled to The Australian Museum, Sydney; Dubbo Regional Gallery; Broken Hill City Art Gallery and the Mildura Arts Centre. She was selected for the 1996 & 1997 Outback Art Prize at Broken Hill City Art Gallery and her work was also selected for the 1997 Conrad Jupiter’s Art Prize at Gold Coast City Gallery. In 1997 she was awarded a Broken Hill City Art Gallery Artist in Residence.
In 1998 Glynn received an International Women’s Day Award for her contribution to 'Women, Art & the Community’. The following year she was invited to create a work for the charity Jeans for Genes and painted images from Barbara Blackman’s “Certain Chairs”.
Glynn was awarded the 2000 Shoalhaven Arts Board Millennium Sculpture commission creating Shoalhaven Stories , three glazed ceramic obelisks. As part of teh commission Glynn spent extensive time on research and worked with the local community to gather local stories. It was also in 2000 that Glynn was Artist in Residence at “Bundanon”, NSW.
The Strange Memories project began in 2002 when Glynn was the Parks Victoria “Longridge” Artist in Residence, at a spot located adjacent to her childhood family property on the Yarra River at Warrandyte. Later that year she exhibited the work at Montsalvat in Eltham, which included her original music. Glynn was then invited by the Melbourne publisher JoJo Publishing to create a book based on these works and in 2006 Strange Memories , the book of her paintings and writing, was published. Glynn also created a 65 minute artist’s film of the project as well as recording a CD of her original music and live theatre performances based on all of the material. In 2006 Strange Memories was selected for the Merrigong Theatre Development Program at the Illawarra Performing Arts Centre in Wollongong.

The Australian Trade Commission invited Glynn to be part of the first Australian Pavilion at the Shanghai Art Fair in 2006 & 2007, which then led to various exhibition invitations from curators in China. Her focus from 2006 was on international exhibitions: USA, Canada, Korea & primarily China, where she has developed ongoing artistic relationships with a number of Chinese curators and artists.

In 2007 Glynn represented Australia in an international art exhibition titled 'Being’ at the Zhu Qizhan Art Museum in Shanghai, China. The exhibition theme 'Being’ looked at the importance of the environment. She also presented a Strange Memories multi-media work collaborating with a local performer where narration was alternated in English and Mandarin.

Glynn’s project Parallel Dreams is based on her collaboration with contemporary Chinese artist Wu GuoWei. The two female regional artists are working together to extend the unique relationship between their art across their different cultures. In 2008 Glynn was awarded two artist residencies: an Australia China Council Residency to travel to Liaoning Province and another at 'Laughing Waters’ / Nillumbik / Parks Victoria.

Writers:

Glynn, Anna

Date written:

2008

Last updated:

2011