In my studio practice, I explore themes relating to time, memory, beauty and the ephemeral, with a focus on the strength and fragility of human beings and the natural world. With a background in fiber and textile processes, I develop objects and installations through repetition and the accumulation of a variety of materials. Over the years materials have been chosen for their expressive potential; translucent vellum, various personal mementos such as locks of hair from family members, texts from family journals and letters, or collections of natural materials such as plants, shells, stones, or bones. The works have a strong relationship to text and textiles, pattern, transformation, order and chaos, landscape and the body. 

I hope to engage the viewer through the physicality and often the emotional resonance of materials, and through the use of scale. Viewers often confront works which mirror the human body. Larger scale installations may surround the viewer. In some cases small pieces are made requiring the viewer to look from a very close perspective.

While the work may begin as a personal commemoration of the life of a family member or a place such as home, or a tree, my hope is that the work will have universality and will remind viewers of their own history, relationships, view of life and the world we live in.

In my most recent work, I continue to explore and develop the content and ideas from my previous shows in 2019, 2021, and 2023. I pay tribute to trees and the natural world in a broad sense, while focusing on a horse chestnut, and a honey locust tree from my childhood home in Scituate. While I no longer live full time at my childhood home, I do take care of the yard year after year in a continuing cycle.

I have come to developing this new body of work after going through a process of close observation and discovery, gathering and sorting the various plant materials; twigs, leaves, and husks that fall to the ground from the horse chestnut tree and thorns from the honey locust tree. These materials are essential to the life of the tree, but they have served their purpose and are generally overlooked and discarded. I find them beautiful and compelling. These trees have been a part of my life for 72 years. They have existed for so many years, going through their cycle of life as I go through mine.  

Artist Bio

Ann Wessmann is an artist living and working in Boston. She received a BS from Skidmore College and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Wessmann is a Professor Emerita at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, where she taught from 1978-2018 in the 3-D Fine Arts department, and was Program Coordinator for the Fibers program for 23 years.  Wessmann's mixed media wall reliefs, sculptural objects and site specific installations have been exhibited throughout the US including locally at the Fuller Craft Museum, the deCordova Sculpture Park & Museum, the Art Complex Museum, the Mills Gallery, Spoke Gallery @ Medicine Wheel Productions, and Suffolk University Gallery. Wessmann has been a member of Kingston Gallery since 2002 and has had eight major solo shows and seven smaller solo shows at the gallery since 2001.