Works of Abstract Expressionism by Ann Marie Vancas
Earth Moon and Sky, white charcoal on paper
Ann Marie Vancas is an artist whose work spans a variety of media and styles, all built from a strong backbone of abstract expressionism. In her current practice, Ann is prolific, creating paintings, drawings, and even photographs with a stylistic leaning that the artist refers to as “sensuism.”
Ann’s two-dimensional artworks utilize bright, confident strokes of colour, layered with mixed media including acrylic and oil paints, graphite, watercolour, and charcoal. The works are bombastic, sometimes heavy, sometimes highly energetic, always composed with a seemingly even distribution of media and pigment that draws the viewer’s eye on a wild chase across the painted surface. Some of these pieces are reminiscent of abstracts by Noah NJ Bowman.
I like the way that Ann incorporates colour into her photographic works as well. The representational nature of photography necessitates a slight shift in the artist’s mode of working, and yet I see threads of that same surreal, expressionist aesthetic throughout the gallery of Ann’s photos.