Anne Sherwood Pundyk

Painting as Theatre of Agency

Anne Sherwood Pundyk

Painting as Theatre of Agency

  • Paintings
  • Works on Paper
  • Photographs
  • Printmaking
  • Exhibitions
    • "Unbound" Art Access Gallery, Columbus, OH, March 7 - May 30, 2025
    • "Beauty Out of Bounds," Solo Exhibition, East End Arts, Riverhead, NY, March 23 - May 5th, 2024
    • North Fork Art and Artists, Orient, NY, 2022 and 2023
    • "Materials Matter," Art Access Gallery, Columbus, OH, June 20 - September 10, 2022
    • "Permission to Create: The Legacy of Mary Sherwood Wright Jones," The Works, Newark, OH, February 5 - April 2, 2022
    • "House Paint and Other Essays," TheBrownstoneArt, Park Slope, NY, September 19 - October 17, 2021
    • Detour II, East End Arts, Riverhead, NY, June - September 2021
    • "EARTH - Artists as Activists," Southampton Arts Center, Southampton, NY, April 17 - July 11, 2021
    • "Redwing Blackbird" Outdoor Artwork, Arts Center at Duck Creek, East Hampton, NY, Summer 2020
    • "As Far As The Eye Can See," Group Exhibition, VSOP Projects, Greenport, NY, April 11 - May 16, 2020
    • Private Commission on the North Fork, 2019
    • Worlds Within Worlds Installation, Greenport, NY, September 8, 2018
    • "EMINENT DOMAIN," Flash Feminist Art Exhibition, Chelsea, NY, July 2018
    • Selected Group Exhibitions 2016
    • "Unconditional Paint," LIU Brooklyn Salena Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, September 6 - October 28, 2016
    • "The Revolution Will Be Painted: Deux," Solo Exhibition of Paintings, Adah Rose Gallery, Kensington, MD, March 2016
    • "The Revolution Will Be Painted" Solo Exhibition of Paintings, Christopher Stout Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, April 2016
    • "Milk and Night," Group Exhibition, Gallery Sensei, New York, NY, September 2014
    • "Stadia," Solo Exhibition of Paintings, Susan Eley Fine Art, New York, NY, 2013
    • "Self Taught," Studio Installation, New York, NY, September 2013
    • "RENTED WORLD," Solo Exhibition at The MAve Hotel, New York, NY, December 2012
    • "Parallax Painting," Installation in MATERIAL TAK, Panepinto Galleries, Jersey City, NJ, June 2012
    • "Rapunzel Retrospective Installation," Solo Exhibition, Queens College Art Center, New York, NY, March 2012
    • “Mourning Tower” Queens College Art Center, New York, NY, May 5, 2011
    • "A Semblance" exhibition of paintings, Susan Eley Fine Art, New York, NY, 2010
  • Performances
    • Strange and Wonderful for Beauty Out of Bounds Exhibition, Riverhead, NY, May 5, 2024
    • Flag Field Performance, Mattituck, NY, June 5, 2021
    • UN-CRUSHING YOUR SOUL, performance May 16, 2020 and video July, 2020
    • EMINENT DOMAIN "Tales" Performance, Chelsea, NY July 12, 2018
    • VSOP Projects Artists Reading, December 17, 2017
    • "Numbers and Lines," Performance at Launch of The Forgetory issue #3 ANXIETY at Dillon Gallery, NY, August 26, 2016
    • "The Revolution Will Be Painted," Opening Performance, Christopher Stout Gallery, New York, April 1, 2016
    • "Painting and Activism," Lecture and Square Dance, Marymount Manhattan College, November 11, 2015
    • Video Reading for Hysteria Magazine New York Launch, Otion Front Studio, September 3, 2015
    • "Eye Machine" Performance, Samadhi Arts Launch, August 29, 2015
    • North Fork Square Dance, June 14, 2015
    • "Worlds Within Worlds," Familiars Quarterly Launch, Baby's All Right, May 2015
    • "Day of 1,000 Venuses," November 23, 2014
    • Bushwick Art Crit Group Feminist Panel Discussion, November 14, 2014
    • "Clitney Perennial," Rogue Gathering, Whitney Biennial, May 2014
    • "Sacred Nipples" Video Screening, The Last Brucennial, March 2014
    • "Wolf Moon Gathering," GAG Magazine #2, MoMA PS1, January 2014
    • GAG Discussion Group in "Between The Door and The Street," by Suzanne Lacy, Brooklyn Museum and Creative Time, October 2013
    • "Stadia" Interactive Events, Susan Eley Gallery, November 2013
    • Girls Against God Magazine Issue #1 and #2 Launch Events, Printed Matter, June 2013 and MoMA PS1, October 2014
  • Artist's Books
    • The Garden
    • Tool Books
    • Book Shirt
    • Transformed Books
    • Paint Box Book
    • Live Books
    • Recognition Books
    • Wall Picture Books
    • Books from Essays
    • Fine Arts Magazine
  • Photo and Time Based Work
    • Photoworks
      • Paint Box Prints
      • Collage
      • Persephone
      • KUTVP
      • Photoglyphs
    • Paint/Dance Works
    • Video
    • Archive
      • Paintings 2014 - 2015: Worlds Within Worlds
      • Paintings 2012 - 2013: Stage
      • Paintings 2008 - 2011: Self
      • Works on Paper
      • 100% Real Painting (Versailles)
  • Writing
    • Space Sister's Press Publication: "The Garden" by Anne Sherwood Pundyk
    • Franklin Furnace Archive Essay: Creating "The Garden"
    • artcritical
    • Hyperallergic
    • The Brooklyn Rail
    • Art in America
    • Painters' Table
    • Art511 Magazine
      • ART21 Magazine
    • Artist Statements
    • Hamptons Art Hub
    • Anne Sherwood Pundyk Artblog
      • HYSTERIA
  • Braincake Blog
  • About
    • CV
    • Reviews, Essays, Interviews
    • Biography
    • News
    • Studio
    • Footnote
  • Press
    • More Reviews, Interviews and Press
    • "UNBOUND, Anne Sherwood Pundyk | Amanda Love," Art Access Gallery, Press Release, March 7, 2025
    • The Suffolk Times, March 19, 2024
    • East End Beacon, April 19, 2024
    • Art Spiel Interview, April 18, 2024
    • Artist's Books at Denison University Virtual Conversation, May 4, 2022
    • artcritical, March 8, 2022
    • The Newark Advocate, March 15, 2022
    • Permission to Create coverage on Daytime Columbus with Robyn Haines - January 26, 2022
    • The Large Glass Interview - October 5, 2021
    • House Paint and Other Essays, Solo Exhibition at TheBrownStoneArt, Press Release September 2021
    • Artful Circle Profile by Jaqueline Covey, August 2021
    • eARTh - Artists as Activists, Southampton Arts Center Press Release April 2021
    • As Far As The Eye Can See, VSOP Projects, Gallery Statement, March 2020
    • Washington Post Review of The Revolution Will Be Painted Deux
    • artcritical Review of The Revolution Will Be Painted
    • Hyperallergic Review of The Revolution Will Be Painted
  • Contact
UN-CRUSHING YOUR SOUL
2020
Performance/Video
12:55 minutes, Single Channel, Color, with Audio

In April 2020, I was invited to create an Instagram Live performance as part of a group exhibition called “As Far As The eye Can See,” at Jonathan Weiskopf’s VSOP Projects in Greenport, NY. The Covid pandemic was just taking hold and no visitors were allowed to see the exhibition in person. While planning my online performance, called “VOICE OVER PAINT,” about my approach to painting, I unearthed a long-forgotten experience of professional and personal harassment and subsequently was able to draw the two events together in my video made the following summer, “UN-CRUSHING YOUR SOUL” to illustrate a lifetime of persistence in the face of institutional indifference.


This video takes the form of a story within a story. I revisit my artworld hazing from 1978. It’s retelling imprints the encompassing narrative of my Instagram Life performance created 40 years later. Two live-action montages bookend the film. To begin, I edit digitized vintage super-8 footage of my original response to the experience years ago from a film called “PINK SHOES,” in this section, I describe by escape from the rigid judgments of an art professor by taking a semester abroad in Paris. On my return, I recommit to my own aesthetic direction.


The film’s closing montage presents an abridged version of my performance in May 2020. Edited from an archived recording, it features a split screen of video streaming and video projection over life action. During the performance, I take my time moving throughout the squares of cut canvas arrayed on the studio floor. I pour gold or indigo liquid paint onto some of the pieces, on others, I trace arcs in colored pencil, or hand-paint spheres. As with my long-ago solo trip to Paris, I am looking for my own answers to the question of what is important to me. My actions in the studio are paired below images of a wild meadow alternating with cross-dissolving blocks of pure color. Seen together, the two tracks evoke the process of self-reflection.


Linking the film’s live action sequences is a countdown succession of still photographs, journal pages, script notes, and texts, which document the evolution of “VOICE OVER PAINT.” Reinforcing the film’s overall structure of interlocking segments, the live and still elements are visually united by a progression of geometric diagrams in solid, bold colors. A piano solo by Claudia Eisen-Flack of Haydn’s Sonata No. 33 in C Minor plays throughout the film, with voice over narration interspersed between meadow bird songs.


Credits:

Created by Anne Sherwood Pundyk with Phoebe Pundyk, Evan Pundyk, Jeff Pundyk, Julia Winser Fiorino and Jonathan Weiskopf

Music: Claudia Eisen-Flack


In the spring of 2021, "UN-CRUSHING YOUR SOUL" was published in The Loculus Journal, The Sideways Door.


Works available on Artsy

and Curina

All images copyright the artist, 2025.

 

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