Anne Ehrlich
I am a painter, sculptor and architectural designer based in Bella Coola, BC, Canada, a remote west coast town surrounded by steep mountains. As a child I spent summers hiking and searching for agates and crystals with my family, which has informed my art practice today.
I received my BFA from Emily Carr University in Vancouver (2006), and graduated with honours from the Master of Architecture program at the University of Toronto in 2011. After working in design studios in Toronto, Vancouver, and San Francisco, I returned to my hometown of Bella Coola to run a freelance design business and develop my art practice. I founded and edit the bimonthly newsletter The Geode, which explores a range art and design work through the lens of a love for rocks and minerals.
Artist's Statement
My paintings, sculpture, and editorial practice are centred around the connection between art making and geologic processes. In particular, I find a wealth of inspiration in meditating on the similarities between collage, curation, and the science of studying the composition of aggregates of rock. Fragments of imagery and fragments of stone tell mysterious stories about their internal composition, origin, and relationship to adjacent, juxtaposed elements.
My recent paintings are made by following a recycling process similar to the transition from sedimentary to metamorphic rock. Combing through layers of old magazines about discovery, exploration, and observation (Canadian Geographic, National Geographic, etc.), I sift out fragments that I then assemble into flimsy, abstract paper still lifes. These compositions provide a starting point for each painting — the existing layers of sediment. As I paint, I look for something new: an opening, portal, or vessel that holds vestiges of the original imagery, much like marble retaining ghostly fossil shapes originally found in limestone.
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Selected Clients
Central Coast Regional District
Bella Coola Music Festival
Group Exhibitions & Fairs
2020
Congruence
I Like Your Work Podcast Summer Exhibition
Online
The Shape of Content: Art from Afar
Off the Cost, Online
2012
RE Place / RE Quest, Gendai Gallery, Toronto
2010
In-course exhibitions at Larry Wayne Richards Gallery, University of Toronto
In-course exhibitions at Eric Arthur Gallery,
University of Toronto
2007
A Refurnished Study, Access Artist Run Centre, Vancouver
2006
Kickstart the Art, Gaoler's Mews, Vancouver
Diminutive Disposition, Helen Pitt Gallery, Vancouver
Graduation Exhibition, Emily Carr University
2005
Two Yokels, Two Locals and a guy from Portland, Antisocial Gallery, Vancouver