Parrasch Heijnen is pleased to present A Hymn for the Mother, the gallery’s first exhibition with Jefferson City, Montana-based artist Anne Appleby (b. 1954, Harrisburg, PA). The work in this show travels to Los Angeles from the artist’s recent solo exhibition at the Missoula Art Museum, and incorporates all facets of Appleby’s oeuvre including: painting, video, sculpture, and photography.
The essential becomes visible in Anne Appleby’s paintings through their ethereal aura. The artist feels the changes in her environment—the subtle shifts in minutes, hours, weather, atmospheric conditions, and seasons. These activating moments prompt conversations regarding our complex relationship with nature.
Appleby’s paintings appear both as abstractions and impressions taken from a whole. She creates the illusion of tenuous hues that appear simultaneously in and out of focus by enhancing the final layers of oil paint with wax. From a distance, each image’s precision is accentuated and its details appear harmonious. The more intimate the viewer becomes with the image, the more its abstract qualities reveal distinct textured marks and strokes.
In paintings from the First Light/Last Light series (2021) included in this show, Appleby seeks to capture the color-phenomena of light. In shades of gray and multicolored tones, she depicts fleeting moments of tranquility and joy in her tonal exchanges. Appleby builds colors, creating depth with such minute variety that their source is often difficult to pinpoint—they appear like an imprint of light formed intimately by a specific place, time, and memory.
Appleby’s personal paeans to her surroundings extend into her other mediums, including video and raw sculpture. The video piece Water Voices (2019-2021) follows indigenous children playing in and emerging from the waves, considering our coexistence with nature. This idea carries throughout her work, similar to Untitled (2021) a kneeling clay figure appearing in meditation. Though entirely different in form, both observe notions of our corporeality within the ever-fluctuating environment.
The effects of climate change are directly considered in Appleby’s painting The Pond (2021) where a fog-like haze disperses throughout a forest, melding the background and foreground. Through a pseudo-monochromatic scale, Appleby addresses not just our physical bond, but our spiritual connection with nature, embedding questions of agency regarding our role in protecting the environment. These tinted works reflect a Cree and Anishinaabe belief that certain souls drift in a pre-color state and it is up to those on Earth to guide them into the light.