About the Artist

Born in Richmond, VA, Adrienne Anderson was brought up in Atlanta, GA. Anderson has traveled extensively  through the Orient, Middle East, Europe, and Central America, picking up three languages on the way. She earned an AA in Drawing and Painting at Sullins College and received both a BFA and MFA from the University of Georgia and has held several teaching positions before joining the faculty at The American InterContinental University in Atlanta in 1985 and also serving as Associate Professor of Art at Kennesaw State University. Currently, Anderson is Associate Professor at the American InterContinental University and Assistant Program Chair of the Visual Communication Department as well as Director of the Gallery. 

Anderson's complex paintings- they teem with historical references - are essentially explorations of contemporary experience.  She combines theme and form, to arrive at images whose narrative fragments challenge the viewer to create his or her unique responses.  Her works juxtapose isolated parts:  hands, heads, birds, flowers, animals - fragments suggestive of a narrative or drama, opening the door for many interpretations.  Anderson intertwines unrelated images to represent how we interact, or fail to interact - that quivering line between connection and separation, union and distance. Recently, Anderson has been examining the relationship between Asian and Western iconography layering and overlapping repeating images in black and white within a limited palette.  This creates a pentimento effect of images that show through in a veil-like manner.  If every culture has its own visual language, then Anderson's work is an attempt  to construct the perfect symbol - one that transcends cultural differences.

Adrienne Anderson was Assistant Dean of the Visual Communication Department and Distinguished Professor of Art at the American InterContinental University in Atlanta. Currently Ms Anderson is an instructor at the Art Institute of Atlanta and also at the new Decatur Campus as well. 

Ms Anderson has had over 50 one person exhibitions in the United States and Europe. Ms Anderson is also the recipient of the Childe Hassam/Alexander Calder Award by the American Academy of Arts and Letters Lifetime Membership.  In March 1997 she was honored as one the 150 most outstanding "Women in the Visual Arts" in the state of Georgia.  She received the Georgia Council for the Arts Artists Grant in 1993-94, she is a member of the Pastel Society of America.  Ms Anderson also taught at the University of Montevallo in Alabama and with the University of Georgia Studies Abroad Program, Cortona, Italy, Penland School of Art, Penland, N.C., conducted papermaking workshops for the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C., and most recently served as Associate Professor of Art at Kennesaw State University.

Anderson is in many public and private collections naming only a few are Coca Cola Headquarters, MOCA, Museum of Contemporary Art of GA, Atlanta, GA, Colquitt County Arts, Center, Moultri, GA, Walt Disney Commission, ESPN Zone, Atlanta, GA, Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, GA, Springfield Museum of Art, Springfield, MO,

Norton School  and Gallery of Art, West Palm Beach, FL, Montgomery Museum of Art, Montgomery, Al, Huntsville Museum  of Art, Huntsville, Al, Hanes Corporation Headquarters, Winston-Salem, NC, Pepisco, Somers, NY,  and Agra Industries, Ontario, Canada.

In this series the artist has juxtaposed and layered various fragmented images inspired by Classical, Asian, and Renaissance imagery which suggest a narrative that contemplates the dignity, suffering, life, fragility, strength, tenacity, and alienation of human nature.  This is expressed metaphorically by depicting the cycles of nature using figures, animals, landscape, and floral elements. These  are works emerging form energetic grounds. The artist intertwines images exploring how human nature interacts or how it fails to do so.  The work provokes reflection on man's ultimate finiteness and vulnerability.