Born and raised in North Carolina, Anna Buckner received a BFA in painting from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2012 and a MFA in painting from Indiana University in 2016. In 2014, she completed an apprenticeship in Buddhist Thangka painting in Sikkim, India. Anna Buckner has exhibited nationally and was recently featured in the 125th edition of New American Paintings. She is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at Michigan State University.
“Liminality is soft. It is malleable, compliant, fluid, and supple. It is a place in-between what is and what will be, questioning traditions and creating space for transformation. Water is like that. Yielding. It is soft enough to trickle into in-between spaces and strong enough to smooth the edges of a shard of glass.
A studio is also like that. In mine I create works that exist somewhere in between piecework and painting. Yesterday I was eating a grapefruit and tacked the peel on the wall next to a finished piece. I was humbled by its beauty and awkward elegance. On the wall the peel hardened, transforming into something almost foreign. Taken out of context, I noticed more.
Making exists as phases within a cycle, rather than stepping-stones to a concrete goal. What the Water Does is a performance of making, exposing this cycle in an evolving exhibition. Join me as I collect, sew, sort and tack grapefruit peels on my studio wall. “
