Ann Forbush: art & design

return to home page



 Ann P. Forbush ..................................... art & design


 

About the artist

Ann Forbush holds a Fine Arts degree from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, with a double major in painting and photography.

After studying textile printing at Boston University's Program in Artisanry, she worked as a textile designer and product manager for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston's national mail order catalogue. Since that time, she has collaborated with Worldwise Education, a greeting card publisher and is involved in freelance work for two local theatres.

Ms. Forbush is currently a printmaking and mixed media instructor at the DeCordova Museum School in Lincoln, Massachusetts, specializing in teaching k-12 art teachers. She is on the board of The Monotype Guild of New England (MGNE) and the Executive Committee of the Watertown Children's Theatre. She is an active member of the Cambridge Art Association and the Concord Art Association.

Since the year 2000, Ms. Forbush has mounted four solo exhibitions and has participated in over 50 group shows including four juried book exhibits in Australia. She has received grants to create artist's books from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the Watertown Community Foundation.

In 2009, Ms. Forbush was selected to participate in Home Is Where the Art Is, an exhibition of commissioned artwork that was exhibited at the Boston Convention Center prior to permanent installation at the Kent Street Mansion, a residence owned by Boston's Children's Hospital. In June, Ms. Forbush was accepted to the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts to study bookbinding.

Her work is in the collection of the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. and private collections throughout New England.

About the process

Both monoprinting and collage techniques share a spontaneous, tactile quality that invites an experimental approach. Unlike more traditional forms of printmaking where the goal is to create identical images, monoprints contain inherent variation.

To make a monotype, I apply ink to a smooth printing plate using rollers, brushes and paper stencils. Then, I place a piece of damp paper on top of the inked plate and run them through a press. My one-of-a-kind prints often go through the press many times to build up layers of ink and images. This process can be very intuitive, and allows me to incorporate a variety of materials and "happy accidents"!

Artist's statement

I have always been fascinated by "marks" that living things leave behind in the form of fossils, vessels, shadows and handwriting. These elements recur in my prints. Most recently, I've incorporated the idea of "marks" left by the spoken word: remembered conversations, known quotes, personal admonitions. Often, my visual ideas spring from verbal sources that suggest a narrative without spelling out the whole story.

Through the use of delicate paper stencils and carved blocks, I have developed a cache of personal icons that take on new meanings depending on their context. Some of my stencils are easily recognized objects, while others are more ambiguous or metaphorical. The stencils can be re-used, but only for a short time; this transient quality gives them a "life span" all their own.

Solo Exhibitions

2007 Espalier Prints & Collages
Harvard University Lutheran Church, Cambridge, MA, 26 pieces

2004 Tableau Prints by Ann Forbush
dEmios Gallery, Belmont, MA, 29 photographs

2003 Ladder Boxes & Monotypes
MacPhail Architectural Collaborative, Belmont, MA, 38 pieces

2001 Ann Forbush Monoprints
Concord Library Gallery, Concord, MA, 28 prints

Awards and Grants

2005 Watertown Community Foundation Grant to fund an outdoor installation which was later reconfigured for display at 10 additional venues in 2006
2003 Massachusetts Cultural Council Grant to create an edition of artist books
2002 Forbes Museum, Jury Award for mixed media work

Selected Juried Exhibitions

2008 MGNE National Show
Attleboro Museum, Attleboro, MA
Juror: Aprile Gallant, Smith College Art Museum

2008 Northeast Prize Show
Cambridge Art Association
Juror: Nicholas Baume, Curator Institute of Contempory Art, Boston

2008 Back to Basics: Artist Books 2008
Noosa Regional Gallery, Noosa, Australia

2008 Different Voices: the Unique Print
Courthouse Art Center, Kingston, RI
Juror: Katherine French, Director of The Danforth Museum of Art

2007 RED: More than a color
Cambridge Art Association, Cambridge, MA
Juror: Jane Farver, Director MIT List Visual Arts Center

2006 Artists BooKs: 10+Beyond
Noosa Regional Gallery, Noosa, Australia

2005 Stretching the Boundaries
Cambridge Artists Cooperative, Harvard Sq
Juror: Sharon McCartney, Boston Book Arts

2005 Image as Text, Text as Image
Noosa Regional Gallery, Noosa, Australia

2004 Travelogue
ART.3 Gallery, Manchester NH

2003 National Prize Show
Cambridge Art Association, Cambridge, MA
Juror: Marc Pachter, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Museum

2002 Pushing the Envelope
Cambridge Art Association, Cambridge, MA
Juror: Robert Siegelman, Professor, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

2002 Works of Imagination
Regional Gallery Noosa, Australia

2002 The Harbor Islands
Guild of Boston Artists, juried auction
Juror: Jonathan Fairbanks, MFA, Boston, Painting Dept. Curator