Anna Kuchel Rabinowitz

STORY

I have a somewhat unusual background in that I am the daughter of a foreign service officer and grew up moving every three years from country to country. So although I define myself as American, I am a cultural chameleon. I have clung to the golden embroidered Egyptian cotton of coptic dresses, wrapped myself in Nigerian indigo tie-dyed fabrics, learned to braid long fronds into a rug in Lagos, wore Romanian cross stitched folk shirts before they were fashionable, enjoyed rich Italian brocaded silks, the beautiful tapestries hanging at the Vatican, the satin stitched roses of Hungary, and the calm colored weaving my Swedish grandmother made on her large wooden loom. My main toy was my hands and my imagination. My teenage years were spent in Italy, surrounded by art; I fell in love with figurative sculpture.

Although I never formally earned a degree in the Fine Arts, I have studied sculpture, art history, architectural history, urban planning, drafting and design at Sarah Lawrence, NYU and Columbia University, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. When I returned to the United States to start college in the early 80’s, I fully expected to immerse myself in sculpture classes only to find that conceptual art had taken such a strong hold that figurative art was not even taught. In my late teens, I was not ready for that form of art, now in my mid-fifties, I have embraced it. With a full life in New York City, between family and work as an architectural conservator, I have translated my experience into my art.

I was fortunate to have discovered the Art Students League where, in fact, I could continue my art studies. I have been sculpting for the last twelve years at the League studying with Jonathan Shahn, Silya Kiese, Greg Wyatt, Mariano del Rosario, Oscar Garcia, Leonid Lerman and Sylvie Covey, and have learned from their sensibilities and techniques. In 2016, I was accepted into the New York Society of Women Artists, which has given me the opportunity to show my work more broadly and be included in a supportive group of professional female artists.

Although I consider myself primarily a sculptor, I have been exploring a wide range of mixed media materials, including stamps, paper, wire, epoxies, seaweed, film and sound. In these works, I often break from my background in figurative work and create pieces that rely more on pattern, scale and structure. It is important to me to have a strong concept when I sculpt and to explore appropriate designs and materials. I select the materials and the form that best conveys the story and sentiments of the piece. I have been incorporating a long-standing love of symbolism and traditional needlework into my artwork using non-traditional materials.

I am fond of making connections between the image and a narrative. I find it intriguing that universal human themes can be found in the remnants of ancient civilization which connect us in the 21st century to our earliest ancestors. We can recognize emotions such as, love, joy, pride, loss, fear, control, in the art of cave dwellers, as easily as those found in recent work. I am fascinated by the images of what events and issues are chosen by societies to commemorate. I appreciate that my art enables me to voice my thoughts regarding the events and issues that surround me. Even though my work can certainly be appreciated on a purely aesthetic level, I hope to challenge the viewer to reflect on its narrative and what it might mean to them.

Over the years, at the Art Students League, my work has been recognized with three best in shows, bronze sculpture, mixed media and print making, participation in the Model to Monument program and a Merit scholarship in semi-figurative art. I recently have had two public art projects in Riverside Park South and a group piece in Van Cortlandt Park as part of the Model to Monuments Program. I have exhibited at Spectrum Miami, Nolan Gallery, Governor’s Island, Brooklyn Waterfront Artist Cooperative, Plaxall Gallery, Queens, 1650 Gallery, Los Angeles, Menlo College, California, The Pen and Brush, Manhattan, the Gladstone Hotel, Toronto, Canada, the Cedarhurst Biennial Sculpture Competition, and Marquette Show in Cedarhurst, Illinois and in numerous exhibitions with the New York Society of Women Artists. I have participated in a teaching training program at the Arts Students League under the mentorship of Jonathan Shahn and have given workshops at the New York City Public Library on symbolic self portraits through the Sculpture Guild.