Ann Chamberlin

Ann Chamberlin’s paintings are presented in the manner and scale of dollhouses where people are caught, like deer in the headlights, in narratives of havoc, mayhem or myth. The scenes are often set at the edge of something –a jagged seashore, falling into a pond of snakes, or beset by bandits on the roadside.  There are marauders on the horizon, obtrusive thought bubbles about handsome sailors, or written pronouncements that say “I have NOTHING to wear”  or “go back!” The style is naïve --though never innocent—and values our uncertainties about these most awkward moments of an examined life.

Chamberlin has lived and worked for most of the past 20 years in Mexico, from the coast of Nayarit to San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato. She has exhibited continuously in the Los Angeles area since 1989, including solo gallery shows at  Jan Baum, Lora Schlesinger , and Craig Krull, and major group shows at the Gallery at REDCAT, the L.A. Municipal Art Gallery, and the Laguna Art Museum. Elsewhere, she has had solo exhibitions at Galeria Arte AC, Monterrey, Mexico, Mia Gallery, Seattle, and the Centro Colombo Americano, Medellín Colombia. Awards include MAA/NEA grant in painting, the California Community Foundation/ Getty Trust Fund for the Arts Individual Artist grant, City of Los Angeles Individual Artist Fellowship, artist residency at La Muse, La Bastide Espairbairenque, France and a Fulbright Scholar award to Medellín, Colombia. She has a B.F.A. from the Universidad de las Américas, Puebla, Mexico and an M.F.A from the University of Texas, Austin. Currently she shows at Craig Krull Gallery in Santa Monica and the outsider art park and gallery, the Chapel of Jimmy Ray in La Cieneguita, Mexico.