Joan Backes (USA)

Backes' work explores the relationship of nature to contemporary society. Her installation for Forest Art Path offered an opportunity to make one of her 'house' series in a new way. Her plan for »Freedom and Wilderness« is to construct a house made of branches from the forest. It will be inspired by Grimm's fairytales that her parents read to her as a child. It will be a fanciful amalgamation of the houses of Hansel and Gretel, Snow White, Rumpelstiltskin, Little Red Riding Hood. Houses featured very strongly in these fairytales and they offer the reader, or the person being read to, an opportunity for lively imaginings of how these dwellings might have appeared. To Backes, they were an essential part of the story. This house will be one where people can walk inside.

Biography: Joan Backes is a painter and installation artist who lives and works Providence, Rhode Island and New York City. Recent exhibitions include one person exhibitions at Sleeper Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland; Linnaeus Garden, Uppsala, Sweden (permanent installation); SAFN, Reykjavik, Iceland; PSG Gallery, Bangkok, Thailand; recent group shows include: Chelsea Art Museum, New York City; Wave Hill Gallery, New York; Gallery Benoit, Boston, Massachusetts. Backes' recent awards: Senior Fulbright Scholar Award; Creative Arts Council Faculty Award, Brown University; Edwin Austin Abbey Fellowship. Her work is in museum and private collections internationally.