Ann Lewis

ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Ann Lewis (American, 1981) is a multidisciplinary activist artist using painting, installation, and participatory performance to explore themes related to American identity, power structures, and justice. She often creates these works in our public spaces. In early 2014 the artist garnered national media attention when she installed an oversized police tape banner that read ‘GENTRIFICATION IN PROGRESS’ at the former graffiti mecca 5 Pointz in Queens, New York. She exhibited at the White House in the fall of 2015 during the Obama Administration's reflection on mass incarceration. Most recently she has been named a 2018 Artist-in-Residence at the Santa Fe Art Institute Residency for Equal Justice. Her work has been acquired by the New York Historical Society Museum and the US Library of Congress. Since receiving her bachelor’s degree in Fine Art from the University of Wisconsin- Madison, her art has been reviewed in Hyperallergic, Artnet, Interview Magazine, The LA Times, The Guardian, and The New York Times. She has exhibited in solo and group shows throughout the US and abroad including shows at Petzel Gallery in New York, Seyhoun Gallery in Tehran, Iran, and Truth to Power during the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. She has lectured at PACE University as well as CAA, and is a teaching artist with the Young New Yorkers. Through community organizing, participatory performance events, murals, uncommissioned street work, and gallery installations, she continues her dialog of mindful and social evolution.

Find more by Ann Lewis at annlew.is.

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Ann Lewis is a multidisciplinary activist artist using painting, installation, and participatory performance in our public spaces to explore themes related to American identity, power structures, and justice. Her work interrogates power imbalances such as mass incarceration, police brutality, and the desecration of women’s and trans rights. Ann’s data-driven art uses concept-specific materials to reflect facts in these apocryphal times. After receiving her Bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin she has shown at the Obama White House, and her mural See Her received an Americans for the Arts 2018 Public Art Network (PAN) Year in Review Award. Ann’s art has been acquired by the New York Historical Society Museum and the US Library of Congress.Her work has been discussed in Hyperallergic, Artnet, Interview Magazine, The LA Times, and The Guardian. She has exhibited in solo and group shows throughout the US and abroad including shows at Petzel Gallery in New York, Seyhoun Gallery in Tehran, Iran. Her most recent work To Be Human commissioned by Duolingo spans 17,000 sq ft and instigated a dialogue producing a large public art grant supporting artists in Pittsburgh, PA.