Art Residency: March 1-31, 2023
International Studio and Curatorial Program in New York (ISCP) 
1040 Metropolitan Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11211

ISCP Talk: Artists at Work: Maess Anand and Hulda Rós Gudnadóttir
March 28, 2023, 6–7:30pm

For this Artists at Work, current ISCP residents Maess Anand and Hulda Rós Gudnadóttir will give presentations on their respective artistic practices and engage the audience in conversation. Anand will present her drawings, which examine organisms attacked by cancer. The artist transforms scientific material from cancer-related databases, histopathology images, Kaplan-Meier curves, and 2D and 3D modeling, into expressive images. In her hands, data and emotional insights into the experience of living with cancer become a chimerical force for new understanding.

Maess Anand is a Polish drawing artist based in Warsaw and Hamburg. After graduating from Warsaw Elsner School of Music, she graduated with an MFA at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and was recipient of a scholarship at the Escola Superior de Artes e Design in Porto, Portugal. The artist has exhibited at The Drawing Center, New York; CCA U-jazdowski Castle, Warsaw; Wroclaw Contemporary Museum; Warsaw Austrian Cultural Forum; Equity Gallery, New York; IK Projects, Lima, Peru; and at Biennale de la Biche on a deserted island near Guadeloupe; among others. Anand’s fellowships include Leipzig International Art Programme; Virginia Center for Creative Arts; Residency Unlimited,  New York; and Yaddo, Saratoga Springs.

Hulda Rós Gudnadóttir’s a visual artist born and raised in Reykjavík and based in Berlin, who works within the intersection of contemporary visual art and film projects which involve long-term processes based on immersive research, interdisciplinary collaborations and social engagement.  She follows the interconnectedness of current philosophical ideas, social systems and human perception of the environment through installations, paintings, sculptures, objects, photographs, film, and performances. Gudnadóttir’s multidisciplinary practice connects the artist’s personal perspective to global histories. Hulda Rós Gudnadóttir has exhibited work at Berlinische Galerie, Germany; Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Germany; and Reykjavik Art Museum, Iceland, among others.

Gudnadóttir will give an exclusive sneak-peek into her current artistic project, working title S-I-L-I-C-A, wherein she traces the process of manufacturing semiconductors used in solar cells. Her project uncovers global supply chains used in the creation of so-called “green energy” in a manner that is at once rigorous, playful, and provocative.

Polish Cultural Institute New York is proud to support art residency of Maess Anand at the International Studio and Curatorial Program in New York (ISCP) which takes place between March 1-31. During her residency, the artist develops a new body of work which explore organic forms of abstraction stemming from the scientific research on organisms affected by cancer.

Maess Anand is a Polish artist based in Warsaw and Hamburg, whose primary medium is drawing, as well as watercolor crayon, and ink. After graduating from Warsaw Elsner School of Music, she graduated with an MFA at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and was recipient of a scholarship at the Escola Superior de Artes e Design in Porto, Portugal. In 2012, Maess Anand was nominated to the Grand Prix at the FID Prize Paris, and in 2013 she was shortlisted to the Strabag International Art Award in Vienna, Austria.

Amongst others, the artist exhibited at The Drawing Center in New York, CCA U-jazdowski Castle in Warsaw, Wroclaw Contemporary Museum, Warsaw Austrian Cultural Forum, Equity Gallery in New York, IK Projects in Lima, Peru and at Biennale de la Biche on deserted island near Guadeloupe.

Maess Anand was a recipient of numerous fellowships including: Leipzig International Art Programme in Leipzig. Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Residency Unlimited in New York and The Corporation of Yaddo in Saratoga Springs. Her drawings were presented in Vice Magazine, FUKT Magazine for Contemporary Drawing and The Lancet Oncology.

Maess Anand’s works examine organisms attacked by cancer. Using scientific material that involves cancer related databases, microscopic views, histopathology images, Kaplan-Meier curves, 2D and 3D modelling, the artist combines these visual facts about cancer into expressive images to create something meaningful and emotionally insightful.

This program is supported, in part, by Polish Cultural Institute New York; Adam Mickiewicz Institute; Krupa Gallery; The Icelandic Visual Artists Copyright Association; Gallery Gudmundsdottir; Icelandic Art Fund; Hartfield Foundation; Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council; New York City Council District 34; New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature; The New York Community Trust’s Edward and Sally Van Lier Fund; and William Talbott Hillman Foundation.

Lead image: Photo Ola Golczyńska  instagram @ola_golczynska