Anita Glesta
Resident Artist at (Re)Create in the Summer of 2017
Australian/American artist Anita Glesta’s work aims to subvert and catalyze different ways to think about our shared humanity in historic and contemporary contexts through deep time relationships. The interconnection between nature and the human body is a constant referential source. Developed with the public concern paramount to the core vision, Glesta connects with the community through interactivity in public settings. Integrating these concerns by inviting the viewer to look and engage with their entire physical and psychological selves as with her work Watershed and Unnerved. Mediums including time-based installation, sculpture, video and 2 -dimensions artworks.
The arch of Glesta’s three- decade long career has occurred in both private and public settings which has included solo and group exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Krakow (MOCAK); Peking Museum of Art and Archeology, Beijing; New Museum, New York; Hudson River Museum, New York; White Columns, New York; Parrish Museum, New York; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney and other museums and galleries internationally.
Two permanent public art commissions are sited in Sydney, Australia and near Washington D.C. in the USA. The Federal Census Bureau building, 2010, in Suitland Maryland was commissioned by the General Administration Services Art in Architecture. Yurong Water Gardens was commissioned by Sydney city council in 1999.
She is the recipient of many awards, including the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship; New York State Council of the Arts New Media, Pollock/Krasner, the Puffin Foundation and others. In 2020, Glesta was awarded a prestigious “Laureate Research Fellowship” in neuroscience by the UNSW National Institute For Experimental Arts to study the corresponding synapsis of the Vagus Nerve through digital and 2 dimensional art.
Glesta’s aesthetic lures the viewer into the work and subtly seduces the viewer’s attention to understand that there is something greater than what is visually presented.
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Federal Bureau of the Census, GSA Sculpture Commission, Suitland, Md Sydney City Council, Public art commission, Cook and Phillip Park, Sydney, Au Bennington College, Bennington, VT
Sackler Foundation for the Arts, Science and, Humanities
Peking University Museum of Art and Archaeology, Beijing, China Campbelltown Botanic Gardens, New South Wales, Australia
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
BIBLIOGRAPHY
2022 Bennett, Jim - Essay UNNERVED included in Publication, “The Big Anxiety, Taking Care of Mental Health in Times of Crisis”, Bloomsbury Press, 2022
Stevens, Andrew - As Anita began painting a giant heart... , Sydney Morning Herald, Feature article, Arts and Culture, September 8th.
2020 McNay, Anna - Studio International, A Personal Message, Artists during Covid, March 3rd. ArtW, Women Artists, online McNay, Anna - feature article, The Flux Review magazine, UK, Edition 3
2017 Public Art Provokes Discourse on Climate Change in London, Metropolis Magazine WATERSHED Enman, Scott – WATERSHED, Brooklyn Eagle
2016 Uszerwicz, Monica - Hyperallergic, review, Satellite Art Fair
2015 WATERSHED, Studio International video interview McKENZIE, Janet – feature, SPIN London Art Fair, Studio International, May 21-23
Carey, Brainard – feature, Anita Glesta, Yale Radio Interview, August 10th 2014 A Buyer’s Market, The Economist, review of Silicon Valley Art Fair, SPIN featured.
2014 Wei, Lilly - Sculpture Magazine, Review by of “GUERNIKA/GUERNICA”
2013 Wei, Lilly – feature, Anita Glesta Interview, Studio International, Arthur M Sackler Museum of Art and Archaeology, Beijing, November 19th
2013 MacKenzie-Spens, Janet - feature article, Studio International
2013 Wender, Abigail, Gernika at 75 years Old, Guernica Magazine, 2013
2011 Pierkawska, Delfina - catalogue essay, Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow 2010 Brushwood Rose, Chloë and Di Paolantonio, Mario – Gernika Project, publication,
Anita Glesta – Artist site. (n.d.). https://anitaglesta.com/