Anne Pollard James is a contemporary figurative (mostly) oil painter. She is interested in the many ways women must navigate the spaces that surround them and take the space wanted in a place, made for and by those who really just want to keep women out. 
 

“We have held our space with hard humor, or a wink and a nudge, with eyes down, or eyes drawn and staring hard, yet always with our eyes wide open to embrace and defend the space that is rightfully ours. Or the space, not yet ours, but that we wish to claim.”

 

The paintings included in her inaugural show, Surfacing reflect on these notions of loud, hard, soft, sweet and sharp: The artist's response to staking her claim and claiming her space, in spite of or inspired by edging towards fifty years (aging in space, rather than aging in place). Coming to rest, finally, on the notion that “I am enough.” That we are enough. And so we are.

 

While not formally trained, Anne has learned from a community of generous talent, including Ross Myer, JP Morrison Lans and Marjorie Atwood.

 

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