Anna Hepler - December, 2019
“I dove into a state of full immersion in the studio, and was held there by the relentless pounding waves (the drum beat of the Atlantic edge), savoring the chance to focus without interruption, and cared for in such a way that risk taking became inevitable.”
Anna Hepler is a sculptor based in Greenfield, MA. She comes from a family of botanists and beekeepers who structured their lives around the unpredictable movements and challenges of the natural world. This life, collaborating explicitly with forces beyond one’s control, establishes a dynamic of flexibility and acceptance, or respect for the unknown. It is this same dynamic that drives and guides her work. Though she has been based in New England for several decades, she has also spent fruitful periods in Seoul, South Korea, in the Netherlands, Italy, and Cyprus, and within the US on both coasts, in cities, in the desert, and in the mountains. Living within unfamiliar cultures, surrounded by the sounds of different languages, and in varied landscapes, she learns to let go of knowing, understanding, and controlling her experience.
The Referee, 2017, plywood, paint, ink, 8 x 6 x 4 feet
Hepler earned a B.A. from Oberlin College and an M.F.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A former Henry Luce Foundation fellow in Seoul, South Korea, she has completed residencies at the Roswell Artist-in-Residence Program, the Tamarind Institute, the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, and the Archie Bray Foundation. In 2016 she was awarded a fellowship by United States Artists, a grant from the Harpo Foundation in 2018, and most recently a Nancy Graves Foundation grant. Hepler has exhibited widely, and her work can be found in the collections of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Tate Modern in London, and the Portland Museum of Art in Maine.
More of her work can be seen at www.annahepler.com.