Annalee Schorr explores the ubiquitous and looks at the quirks in our visual world via photography, painting, and installation. The use of grids and patterning is a constant in Schorr’s varied works. She is interested in social aspects of our culture, and she pursues the realities that lie beneath the surfaces we present to the world.
In her most recent work she has returned to pure pattern, which was the emphasis of her early art in the 70s and 80s. Now the work is childlike and exuberant, using Sharpie pens on layers of mylar, but still retaining the discipline which permeates all her work. She has chosen to take a break from the politically-oriented work of the past, to re-focus on beauty and structure. Inspiration came from trips to Turkey and Spain, where tiles and mosaics in ancient mosques and cathedrals, and the universality of the symbolism used, caught her attention.
Schorr photographs images from her TV screen and photographs homeless people on Denver’s streets. Her aim is to freeze the images which fly past, so that which we “tune out” can be analyzed and synthesized.
In her 2003 “Shock/Awe” solo show at Spark Gallery,” she declared herself “embedded” in her living room, covering the Iraq War via television. She showed 50 large photos of war images shot from her TV screen, plus several enlarged contact sheets. This exhibit earned her Westword’s “Best Political Show of the Year” designation in the Best of Denver issue.
In her continuing project of photographing Denver’s sign-bearing homeless, life-size images are mounted on sheets of raw cardboard, with actual signs as well as Schorr’s notes of the stories each person chose to tell her. These have been shown in many venues, including Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design’s Fine Arts Center; Western Colo. Center for the Arts in Grand Junction; and at the National Conference of Health Care for the Homeless.
Her work has been shown in important invitational exhibits, including “Pattern Recognition,” Foothills Art Center, Golden CO; “Retrospectacle: 25 Years of Collecting Photography,” Denver Art Museum; “Repeat Offenders: Serial Works by Colorado Artists,” Singer Gallery at Mizel Center for the Arts, Denver.
Collectors include Denver Art Museum; University of Wyoming Art Museum; Jones Intercable Inc., Englewood CO; Littleton Colorado Hospital.
