There is an opportunity to see Anna Glynn: Amusement, a solo exhibition by this renowned Shoalhaven artist, on show 14 May—01 June 2025. It is my privilege and pleasure to be the curator of this exhibition being presented by gallerist, Frances Keevil, at Studio W in Woolloomooloo, Sydney.

In working closely with Anna Glynn over the past four months, I have enjoyed unfettered access to her archive of artwork spanning 40 years of prolific, multidisciplinary practice—making it deliciously difficult to select works from such a treasure trove. I succeeded in selecting more than 30 artworks encompassing wall-hanging works—drawing, painting, mixed media, photomontage—video works, sculpture and costume. In my view, as the curator:

“Standing in front of Anna Glynn’s works in this exhibition you may find yourself having an Alice-Through-the-Looking-Glass experience, entering a strange world. It may be unnerving at times but you will be rewarded in ways impossible to predict.”

In addition to the invitation to act as curator, Anna asked me to write and design a publication to accompany her exhibition. My long format essay draws from extended periods spent with Anna in her studio, our long standing association, and extensive formal interviews. Combining the essay with plentiful pictures, my intention is the book takes the reader on an insightful, guided tour of the world of Anna Glynn. Get a glimpse of the tour from some excerpts below.

“What meaty, crunchy, tasty writing. It is brilliant and so far beyond what l imagined.”
Anna Glynn

What follows are excerpts from the publication Anna Glynn: Amusement

The World of Anna Glynn

Welcome to the world of Anna Glynn. Let me proffer Wildlife (above) as a point of entry—the artwork placed at the door into Studio W, the gallery housing the Amusement exhibition. This wee (18.5 x 36cm) photographic work introduces us to much about the art and mind of Anna Glynn.

To create this self-portrait, Glynn dons a wallaby mask, ventures out into the night, out into the hillside property where she lives and works. This is rainforest, sitting below the Illawarra escarpment on Dharawal Country. She hops around, being captured by the motion-detecting, infrared, low-res, trail camera she uses regularly to ‘record the amazing behaviour and strange activities of crepuscular and nocturnal animals’.

Like me, you may find this a delightful and highly amusing picture. I also think it is rather genius, in its sleight of hand where it could be mis/taken as simplistic, silly even. There is some significant philosophical instruction to be received from Wildlife. In the artist statement accompanying Wildlife, Glynn writes

“I place myself into the shared rainforest landscape, amongst the animals, another curious playful creature, living and expressing my true nature!“

In this skewing of the prevailing human-centric world view, she, and we, are in the creatures’ habitat, in their environments and ecosystems. If we are willing to surrender to Glynn’s view, we may discover something valuable about ourselves, put properly in our place.

There is no proselytising here. Rather, there is an open hand offered by the artist, the invitation being, ‘Come with me, let me show you the world through my eyes’.

When we do attune eye and mind to accepting and embracing this rare and precious invitation then our view of ourselves and the world can shift in the most enlightening ways. (p.5)

…..

Antipodean Wonderland

Every morning when I get up, I am greeted by two of Anna Glynn’s artworks whose titles begin, Antipodean Wonderland Tableaux … They have a slightly magical air about them—landscape and birds that are familiar to me but seen through unfamiliar eyes.

When visiting Glynn’s studio I have the sense I am journeying into this artist’s Antipodean Wonderland world. First, there is the landscape I travel through from Jervis Bay to Jaspers Brush. Then the effect of winding up a hillside, looking for the markers that indicate the route to follow. Slowly on and up. On and up. Branching here and there. Arriving in another world.

The effect continues in entering the unique building that is Glynn’s home and studio; along the corridor gallery of works by Glynn and by artists she has collected. At the end, the door opens into a space flooded with natural light and the reality of the startling Antipodean Wonderland setting—vistas to the sea, the presence of rainforest, tiny birds, bigger than big birds, wombats, wallabies, you name it …. This setting, figuratively and literally, sheds light on the art Glynn has made in the years she has been living and working here. 

Turning away from the mesmerising vistas, facing into the studio, is its own kind of Antipodean Wonderland—for here is the store and archive of Glynn’s art practice, now spanning 40 years. I have a slightly giddy sensation entering this repository.

There are works on paper in plan chests of many drawers; paintings and more paintings in racks; framed works veiled in protective wrapping; still-boxed works returned from art prizes; oddities and curiosities from other decades of Glynn’s truly dedicated art practice. The volume, extent, calibre and exquisite nuances of the art found here evokes a kind of reverence.

On being admitted into this sanctum, I have a sense Glynn’s artworks are more cultural artefacts—evidence of our colonial histories and societies—than products for an art industry. And herein lies a great tension. Art making is, first and foremost, a way of being for Glynn, not a means of producing products for consumption. How to stand in both worlds at once? How to be both in her own wonderland of curiosity, probing research, thinking and making that sustains her being, and in the world of commercial gallery exhibitions where value is assessed in terms of sales and investment? To say nothing of appealing to our major collecting institutions. As Glynn herself says, ‘It’s so much easier to just make work and stick it in a cupboard!’ (pp.6-8)

…..

What strikes me about the contemporary Dwelling series is how consistent the threads are in Glynn’s work from her early career, all the way through the works presented in the Amusement exhibition, and beyond.

Glynn’s art calls on us to carefully consider where, and how, we are dwelling, and to consider all that has dwelt here before. Equally, her art calls on us to carefully consider how we are dwelling; how we dwell within ourselves, dwell within our environment (whatever, wherever that may be), and dwell in the company of others. (p.76)

Exhibition Anna Glynn Amusement
14 May—01 June 2025
Curated by Dr Natalie McDonagh
Presented by Frances Keevil
Studio W 6 Bourke Street, Woolloomooloo NSW 2011

Publication Anna Glynn: Amusement
80 pages / Full colour / $30
ISBN 978-06450994-7-8