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Ann Shostrom has shown internationally at galleries and museums. She is represented by Elizabeth Harris Gallery in New York. Her most recent show, “Harvest,” at Elizabeth Harris Gallery, was reviewed in Art in America in May 2011. Other solo shows include Kunstraum Dadapost, Berlin, Germany, Stephanie Theodore, Gallery, New York, NY, Lindhart Foundation, Prague, CZ, Art Now, Goteborg, Sweden, and Rule Gallery, Denver, Colorado. Shostrom is included in “Selections by the International Collage Center,” an exhibition of collage and mixed-media touring museums and galleries. Shostrom’s paintings operate within the seams of fine art and craft traditions. Fabrics and household linens are dyed, painted, embroidered, and sewn together. Her wax resist methods include melting by blowtorch, burning votive candles, and drawing with traditional tools. She joins formalist abstraction to the history of domestic labor and craft. By sewing one tradition into another, weaving across formal boundaries, she makes art from remnants and ruins, repairing and reconstructing as she works.

Shostrom collaborated on a public art project in Shkodra, Albania, sponsored by the Albanian Ministry of Defense, and the Tirana Academy of Art. The sculptures and pavilion, made from decommissioned Cold War Era weapons, were installed in a public park across from the municipal offices. She founded First Street Green, transforming a derelict New York City lot into a Culture Park, with its first season of programming in 2012. FSG’s efforts led to hosting the first BMW Guggenheim Lab at the lot in 2011. FSGhas won grants from BMW, the Citizen’s Committee for NYC, Partnership for Parks, and Penn State’s Institute for Arts and Humanities and College of Arts and Architecture. She received a Mid Atlantic Foundation for the Arts Fellowship for painting in 1989, and a New York State Foundation for the Arts Grant in 1978. (above image: Swell, 2014, fabric / mixed media)

Art Forum is a series of lectures and presentations by artists, critics, museum directors, art historians, and curators. Through exposing students to the experiences of international artists and members of the global arts community, this course intends to introduce students to the creative process, different philosophies of art, and the role of art in private and public life.