ARTIST’S STATEMENT
Ann R Langdon has been cutting and shaping canvas for many years, moving from stretchers to her more recent wall hangings. She is a colorist who also loves texture and tension. Both her paintings and prints have won many awards across the country and have been exhibited throughout the United Staes as well as in Kenya, Hungary and the Czech Republic. Her works are included in various public and private collections.
Langdon has a BA from Connecticut College where her studies began in the sciences. As she moved into Fine Arts, her interest in substructures moved with her. Dissection of a laboratory animal became dissection of a canvas in search of the underlying truth of the creative spirit. Langdon also holds an MA with a focus on Art from Wesleyan University.
“I have long been fascinated with texture and surface: texture as reflecting something organic; surface as covering over an unseen structure or personality. I combine this tactile element with my long-standing search for a visual representation of the human psyche, the human spirit—especially as such images relate to women and their life experiences. In my canvas works, I felt I was piercing an emotion, a façade. The frayed edges no longer fit together neatly leaving a scar as a reminder. Some of the structural “bindings” are cut to alter the original form and to make them more organic—perhaps more human—flaws and all. As William Butler Yeats wrote: “For nothing can be sole or whole That has not been rent.”
My plexiglass sculptures and mobiles evoke an image of preserved life forms: no longer alive, but “wrapped” in a clear protective covering. My Ascomycetes Series of pastel mold drawings speaks to this as well. In them I have created worlds where one can become lost or found; where beauty cycles out of decay.”
My most recent "Viscosity Series" came about as a desire to use play as an inspiration. I am also challenged by using only the four fixed colors that come in the food coloring box. I then pour them into milk and add a drop of dispersant and watch the colors come alive as I had first done with my early, freshly primed canvases. When I see something I like as the colors shift and bubble up from the bottom, I photograph it, sometimes manipulate it and then have the image printed onto canvas to give it a texture and a matte finish.
ANN R LANGDON ©2015
*molds that grow in cold environments such as a refrigerator
