The work of Anne Austin Pearce confronts ambiguous moments no adjectives exist to describe—ones that unfold exclusively inside one’s mind, or between two people at an intersection of communication. They happen when we are grappling with a dream differed, an elusive longing, or an expectation not met. They are the time passed shifting sensibilities, wavering between resolution and avoidance, or teetering at the threshold of debilitating anxiety or liberating submission. They are the grappling with what, when and how to speak, what to distill, and whether to scream.
Anne Austin Pearce was born in Lawrence, Kansas and studied at Kansas City Art Institute, Brighton Polytechnic, and the University of Kansas. She received her MFA in drawing and painting from James Madison University, where she was awarded a full scholarship.
Pearce has been a fellow/artist-in-residence at UCROSS Foundation, Wyoming; Officina Stampiera del Notaio, Sicily; Rimbun Dahan, Malaysia; Draw International, France; and pARTage, Mauritius, and is the recipient of grants from the Lighton International Artist Exchange Program, Charlotte Street Foundation, and Rockhurst University. Pearce’s work, encompassing drawings, paintings, sculptures, and mixed media installations, has been widely exhibited nationally and abroad and is held in museum collections including MDC Museum Art and Design, Miami; Spencer Museum of Art at University of Kansas; Daum Museum of Art, Sedalia, Missouri; and Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, Kansas.
Pearce is currently Associate Professor of Studio Art at SOKA University of America in Aliso Viejo, California. Previously, she was Associate Professor of Art at Rockhurst University, Kansas City, Missouri, where she also served as the director of the university’s Greenlease Gallery of Art.
