Anna Gillespie

"Waiting Game" - Unique Bronze, Found Steel
12x8x8 inches - 2011

What first drew me to Anna Gillespie's art is the way she incorporates nature into her sculptures. She successful ties her personal environmental concerns into her work. I find her art compelling and beautifully executed.

Anna has made sculptures in more traditional mediums like bronze and plaster, but has also done very compelling work with found object including, bark, acorns, masking and duct tape. She studied stone masonry for two years in Bath and then went on to work under sculptor Nigel Konstanan in Italy. 

"Biggest Tree" - Acorn cups and Mixed Media
19x13x22 inches - 2010

Other than her work itself, I think Im drawn to Anna because her journey to become an artist is one I can identify with. She grew up in an artistic family, but decided to move away from her artistic roots and initially pursued her education in philosophy, economics and politics. She began to realize that her heart wasn't in her current field and decided to go back to school to pursue her first love, sculpture. I admire the leap of faith that it took for her to start over again.

"Taste the Rain" - Bark, Mixed Media, Bronze
78x22x15 inches - 2008

I love Anna's bronze work but I find myself very drawn to her nature series. Anna's use of found natural objects, creates a sense of harmony between us and our surroundings, a symbioses between man and nature. You can't view her work without reading her concern for how we relate and interact with the natural world. Viewing her work, I get a sense of how far removed we are from nature and it puts in me a longing to reconnect with it.

"Woodsman" - Acorn cups, Mixed Media, Bronze - 6th Edition
44x13x8 inches - 2012

"I feel I've got a long way to go personally in drawing closer to nature. Art for me is an approach to that, a way to fuse with where we have come from and what we rely on, what sustains us." Anna Gillespie