Anne Lord b. 1953

Also known as Anne Mary Lord, Anne McGuane
  • Artist (Printmaker),
  • Artist (Photographer),
  • Artist (Mixed Media Artist),
  • Artist (Digital Artist/Designer),
  • Artist (Installation Artist),
  • Artist (Painter)
Contemporary photographer, printmaker, ephemeral, installation and digital media artist who lives and works in North Queensland. Lord's work is concerned with contemporary environmental issues and explores metaphors for environment and change.

Born in North Queensland in 1953, Anne Lord has been exhibiting art since the 1970s. Working across the media of painting, photography, installation, print and mixed media, Lord’s later work also incorporates new digital media.

Lord’s work is founded in concerns of place and environment, exploring the dramatic tropical seasons, growth and decay, monsoon, floods, grasslands, drought and bushfires of north Queensland.

Themes of erosion, drought and survival play out in the drawing and lithograph series Survivor Trees and the installation Absence (2004). Absence also draws on a number of personal experiences including Lord’s departure for China, the unexpected death of her father, returning to Australia and her subsequent return to China.

Lord also draws on archival photographs of the North Queensland region from a collection over two centuries old. These images document environmental changes over time and this concept of ongoing environmental change can be consistently traced through her body of work.

Impossible Bucket (2005) came out of her experience of an artists’ camp at Wallaman Falls National Park. This marked a turn in Lord’s work, using ephemeral materials in her installation practice, realising the idea that ephemeral, disintegrating works could be metaphors for environmental issues.

In 2008 Lord was completing her PhD study at James Cook University, where she has been investigating ephemeral art as the agency that challenges archived art.

Selected art exhibitions and installations since 1990 include: Dis/Place (1991- 1992), A Narrative of Ephemera (1993-1994), ROT (1995-6), Fold (1997), Plenty (1998), Exchange (2003), Absence (2004), Corresponding Latitudes (2004-5), Great Walks [Leave No Trace] Habitus Habitat (2005-6), Watersheds and Basins (2006), Inaugural Burnie Print Prize (2007), Tools of Change (2007), Lessons in History Vol 1 (2007) and Strand Ephemera (2007).

Lord’s work is held in a number of collections including the National Gallery of Australia, Warrnambool Regional Gallery and Queensland Art Gallery.

Writers:
Lord, Anne
Date written:
2007
Last updated:
2008