Annette Isham

Colorado | contemporary animation

April - May 2022

My work explores the dynamics of gender, race, and geography through creating animated landscapes, layering moments of fantasy, failure, obstacle, and disruption. My process enjoys the absurd and inserts moments of narrative and collaged sublime. In my latest series, a multitude of layers oscillate against each other at different speeds, creating compositions that feels at once familiar and jarring. Layers of images and digitally drawn marks create an impossible yet strangely cohesive landscape. A cascade of repeating female figures meld into each other, multiplying and dividing in a multi-dimensional inhabitance.

Born in Dominican Rep and growing up in Colorado, Isham’s latest works explore associations with geography, more specifically, how a woman of mixed race can appropriate the masculine myth of the American West. “A myth that tells a tale of a fresh rugged landscape in need of being conquered and in doing so could provide adventure, strength, freedom, and manhood. I see my practice wedged in a crevasse, on one side a feeling of alienation from the American landscape, and on the other, a need to add my own future and history.”  The new feminine inhabits her landscape, is multi-colored and multi-dimensional, moving in and out of origin.

Isham is an artist and professor living in Denver, Colorado. Isham received her M.F.A. from The American University in Washington, DC and currently teaches 4D and Animation at Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design. Isham has exhibited nationally, including Choreography for an Unfamiliar Here at Trestle Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. Isham was the recipient of the 3x3 grant and created A Space To Hold, in collaboration with The Yard in Colorado Spring, CO. Isham has recently concluded a residency at the Museum Of Outdoor Art in Englewood, CO.