Anne Boudreau is a visual artist and an arts educator. She makes suspended fabric constructions and mixed media collages. She is inspired by the structure and efficiency of nature, and her ongoing contemplation of balance. Her work also reflects her cultural heritage and her interest in otherness and difference. She is native of New Orleans and resides in Lafayette, Louisiana.
Boudreau earned her B.F.A. in photography from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette (1984). In the early 1990s she began exhibiting mixed media collage work while she served as the Director of the Baton Rouge Gallery, Inc. From her desire to expand her art making scope and to teach, she returned to school in the mid-90s. She completed her M.F.A. in painting and sculpture from the University of South Carolina (1997). In 1998 she received an Artist Fellowship award from the South Carolina Arts Commission and remained in South Carolina making and exhibiting art while teaching and organizing installation events.
At the end of 2000, Boudreau returned to New Orleans where she continued her studio practice while teaching and coordinating exhibitions at the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts (2001-05). Her post flood interval included a three-month residency at the Santa Fe Arts Institute. In 2006, she assisted in the development of a concentrated visual arts program at a New Orleans public charter high school and chaired the department for two years. Wanting to devote more time to her studio activities, Boudreau returned to part-time teaching. She has taught drawing, design and digital art at the foundations level for over ten years.
Since 2004, Boudreau has been represented by LeMieux Galleries in the New Orleans Arts District. For over ten years she has been an artist member of the Baton Rouge Gallery -- one of the oldest artists’ cooperative galleries in the country. In 2009 Boudreau was invited back to Columbia, South Carolina as an artist in residence at the 701 Center for Contemporary Arts. Her residency culminated with a solo exhibition in the spring of 2009.
Artist Statement
My creative endeavors are motivated by my ongoing quest for balance, my love of nature, and my lived experience as an American from the south. While trying to find connections within and between all parts of my worlds (from the private to the cosmic) I contemplate balance in both a pragmatic and a philosophical way. I am curious and full of wonder when I think about the potential of balance in our social and natural systems. The structure and efficiency of nature provide for me a continuous source of new information, awe and hope.
Born, raised and still living in the deep south, I am also contently steeped in the endemic cultural traditions of New Orleans and South Louisiana. Food, music, dance, and costume are all an integral part of my experience. I appreciate my cultural background as it provides much diversity and many challenges to being a liberal thinker.
I make mixed media sculpture and collages. My sculptural works are colorful, organic forms made with lightweight wire armatures that are wrapped with twine, then covered with fabric panels. I use a variety of fabrics but prefer the characteristics of natural fibers. I typically color the fabric with layers of acrylic washes using the original fabric color or pattern as under-painting. The wrapping and hand-sewing techniques I incorporate are time-consuming and often associated with “women’s work.” I embrace this notion and use my creative time to think about the wonders and woes of our world.
When presenting my fabric constructions, I suspend them from the ceiling -- freeing them from the limitations of traditional gallery furniture and enabling them to float and move independently in space. They can be exhibited as individual art object(s), or to my preference, they can be installed en masse, to create unique environments. When I create these environments it is as much a part of my art making process as manifesting the individual pieces. Through my installations, I aim to suggest an alternative space -- a place or interval that realizes the possibility of balance between living beings and our environments.
