“My work as an artist is to be the mirror to synthesise and to transmute the times, one eye in the past, the second eye in the present and the third eye in the future.”

 - Ann Tracy

Ann Tracy’s career began with a focus on figurative abstraction, developed during studies at Boston University where she earned both undergraduate and graduate degrees in sculpture. Throughout her career, she has drawn inspiration from artists such as Philip Guston and Piero Della Francesca, whose work has informed her understanding of geometry, atmosphere, and the human condition. Her current show, Transmissions, which has its home in the stunning Impulse Gallery in Lucerne, Switzerland, hums with the notion of change and movement, responding to social, political and environmental climates but laying out narratives and imagery that is specific to the fragility of our own times. She presents a time of great challenge and change. The old ways are gone.

In addition to art historical references, in Transmissions, Tracy’s subjects include animals, plants, elements, landscapes and even otherworldly forms. She draws them all together in a collective experience of this period of change and imbalance which the artist constantly refers to in her work.

As part of an enriching visit to Lucerne, where we had the great privilege of experiencing Tracy’s impressive survey, a deep dive with the artist was necessary…

How did you begin your journey into art? Did you grow up in a creative environment? Was your career trajectory a traditional one?

I began my path into art and healing when I was about four years old. My mother had back surgery and my younger sister and I were not allowed to be with her for about a month to six weeks except for a short visit each day. I layed in the lavender bush and the sun as a sort of self-medicine. When I saw her each day, I could bring her this calm and beauty that I had experienced. I remember drawing and colouring and painting to fill my days along with being outdoors, spending a lot of time observing nature and the world around me.

When I was seven years old, I became committed to being an artist. I took all of the rags out of the cleaning rag bag and started to make dolls that were larger than I was. I was very inspired to make something that had a sense of scale and a sense of purpose. These were my friends. My oldest sister was in college at the time, and told me that she would take these doll sculptures to college to sell them. She never did this, but her seeing me gave me a lot of encouragement.

My mother was an artist and my father an orthopaedic surgeon who later became a sculptor of wood. My siblings all played the piano which I was not at all good at due to dyscalculia. I always had great music to listen to while I made my art, which has always been important to me. When I told my father I wanted to study sculpture he said, only once, “are you sure?” and I said yes. He told me to be the very best artist that I could be.

Regarding my career, I knew when I was 24 years old that my journey as an artist would be a durational practice. I knew then that I would be 60 when my career really began to flourish and here I am now 60 with a flourish. I received my BFA and MFA in Sculpture from Boston University and went on to teach in Florida at Broward Community College. In Massachusetts I ran the sculpture department and taught at Clark University in Worcester Massachusetts, all of this for a total of 14 years including my teaching assistantship at BU. I have been teaching Kundalini Yoga and Meditation for 15 years and have spent a long time studying and practicing working with private clients as a yoga therapist for 15 years which I still currently do. I always had a studio during and since graduate school and I have always created a body of work a year whether it was shown or not. I love the quote by Rodin that “patience is an action.” I have shown my work along the way, some solo shows and group shows. My true love has always been studio visits with my peers and also salons with groups of other artists, writers, poets and yogis. I have been steadily producing my work and have enjoyed a lifelong journey in my studio.

You have also lived in many different places…has this inspired a certain perspective and way of making work?

Great question and yes, completely. I grew up in my hometown of Gardner, Massachusetts, and have expanded my world since I was 18 years old, living in different places and within different cultures. Some of us are more like chameleons, sent to Earth to observe. I think I am from this tribe. I have traveled to Guatemala, lived in Miami, lived in Puerto Rico, lived in New York City for a long while, and in Boston. I am now living in Switzerland, which daily comes as a big surprise to me. Always an outsider, challenged with languages, my world is one of seeing, and my ultimate language is visual. I have met many beautiful people along the way and painted my world, my friends who are dear to me, and the people and communities that I have become a part of. I also am a believer in past lives. How did I ever get here, into this particular lifetime as a woman? How many lifetimes have I had as a plant, or a person from a different part of the world unknown to me? I do believe that we are all one. I was always inspired, being born in 1964 in America, that I was a part of and lived through the civil rights movement and the women’s movement.

Which artists most inspire you?

Very many, really. When I was a student, I loved Cycladic sculpture and African sculpture. I loved all artwork that I saw in the museums that riffed off a sense of the divine primal forces or energies, Neolithic cave art, for example. When I started to paint more seriously in school, it was the Fauvists and the German Expressionists that really spoke to me. Something about their immediacy, the urgency, and the speed of their language as death was looming large for them due to war. Artists that I know from my lifetime, students, teachers, and peers, are very important to me. Philip Guston and Piero della Francesca are like portal keys for me, though I don’t paint directly into them. I have tried at times, but you never find your authentic expression if you do so. It has more to do, for me, with how an artist synthesises information to find their way of communication. Within that, I think you meet and are attracted to the work of other artists who work from these same wells. I had the great opportunity at a job I had as a sculptor to make rubber moulds with a team of Louise Bourgeois’ Spider—one of her giant arachnids. It was a privilege to work on those legs and to muse on her trajectory as a great artist who happened to be a woman in this lifetime. I have always loved and marvelled at the high alchemy of Rebecca Horn, Lucas Samaras, Robert Smithson, and Jeff Gibson. All of these artists transmute the material of humanity, which is a very pure magic. They sense the base aspects, but then they work with whatever material it takes to transmute content. This is the power of art.

Where else do you find your inspiration?

The nature of where I am living or have lived. So whether in the jungle, flat land or mountains, at the sea's edge, in the forest, with so many humans on such hard concrete…in the world's museums. In the body through yoga and meditation. Always through gratitude practices. Through trying to see all that I see as if for the first time. The animus of a plant, an animal or blade of grass. A stone, a glass, a cup. Everything and everyone.

Let’s focus on your current exhibition in Lucerne, at Impulse Gallery – where does the title, Transmissions, come from?

Love this word, transmissions. A transmission in a car for example is that part which transmits power from the engine to the axle in a car to make the car “GO.” There is also the “transmission” of a virus. In Hindi the word transmission means “handover, to transfer, devolution, commitment.” In Chan and in Zen Buddhism when a person is established as a “successor in an unbroken lineage of teachers and disciples, a spiritual bloodline or “kechimyaku” theoretically traced back to the Buddha himself.” A dharma lineage. We are now living in the information age, where we all have as much access to information as we want or can stand.

For a human being to view a work of art is a great living teaching, a transmission of the power of the maker to the viewer. Art work is transcendent, art work is the lunch an artist ate, the bodily challenges of the artist, the day the artist produced a work, the atmosphere of the day, the condition of timelessness that the artist finds themselves in when creating. The speed of the work, the “power” of the work which could mean very subtle things. Standing in front of a Vermeer painting or a great Thangka painting which is a part of Sikimese Buddhism or an African mask as it looks back at me symbolises the supernatural forces that benefit the wearers communities. All of these myriad examples of world art have in common the very real action of transmitting messages from all time and space. The message of being alive as a human being, for however long we have. The art or objects we make transcend being human, though they are very much made and born of being human.

The focal piece in the show, which appears altar like at the end of the gallery when you walk forward through the entrance, is Adrienne and the Twins. Can you talk a bit about this work?

I will mention my friend Adrienne and her recent words to me upon reading an article that mentions her name and speaks also about she and her twins. She wrote to me “Ninekotiyape loves you, dear friend.” Adrienne is Africa American on her fathers side and on her mothers side, she and the twins are enrolled as members of the Eastern Shawnee Nation. I was deeply moved by her words and asked her for the definition of Ninekotiyape which she told me is ONENESS. For Adrienne, her ancestors are a vital link to who she is in the world and to how she and her children show up. I feel that she completely understands her role as a transmitter in this painting. Adrienne is a person who has always inspired me. She is a great craft artist and a Rudolf Steiner educator. We raised our little ones together and sometimes all together in Brooklyn at the Brooklyn Waldorf School which we helped to create along with other families. Through Adrienne I was daily reminded of a woman's courage and always showing up in her truth. I was always in awe of Adrienne as she daily figured out her role as mother, single parent and bread winner. She is one of the most courageous women I know, though I am certain, she would disagree (she is humble). Even though this world is playing the patriarchal card really hard right now, as it finds its way out as a model for humanity, we are entering a time of a new Matriarchate, the first one since the last one which was 40,000 years ago. This time around it will need to be a time when male and female energies are balanced in each human and in the world. This is essential for the continued existence of our world. A patriarchate denies the existence of feminine energy, and in this way denies the existence of the moon and the earth herself. 40,000 years of an imbalanced perspective. This is why we are here, now, the way we are on earth.

So, this beautiful Black Madonna (I love to visit Black Madonna’s world wide because they are usually sitting on top of very deep and powerful lay lines on the earth and do grant miracles probably because as they sit, their roots are very deep into the earth…though they may have a church built around them, they transcend the church all together and represent much more of ancient goddess culture) is sitting on top of a 1979 Ford Thunderbird which was my fathers car back in the day though his was silver, not pink. The Madonna known as Adrienne is being recognised by her Twin Children and within them, you see all the ancient cultures. The Madonna in form is taken by me from Piero Della Francesca's painting called Polyptych of the Madonna of Misericordia or the Virgin of Mercy begun in 1445 and completed in 1462. Created for the Borgo San Sepolcro he was supposed to have painted it in three years, but he was so busy it took him seventeen years. Artists are often beyond time and space. In my version of this work, the Madonna holds her cape open and partially shields and includes her children in her safe auric field. In my version there are drips of water that begin in the Virgins cape. They are her sweat and her tears. These drops pour down the racing stripes of the children’s track suits and through and over and onto the car which is slowly becoming submerged and transmuting into a coral reef. A coral reef is a symbol of community. We are from water and we will again become water, through her compassion. The car tires are skulls, a symbol of the end of car culture and the end of the Patriarchate.

Many of the works – including Adrienne and the Twins – are very large-scale paintings. What excites you about working in this way? And are there any particular challenges to this?

The first time I lived in NYC was in the 1980s. I was a recent college graduate who wanted to continue learning how to make large-scale objects. I got a job refinishing and rebuilding pianos because I thought that, while earning money, I might learn something from this craft that I could apply to my art. I work on a variety of scales. The one I like least is the average poster size. This body-friendly mundanity drives me bonkers. I like to work small, but I find it hard to do so because my physical gesture is bigger, so when I do, I have to accept my awkwardness. I value this, as well as my imperfection.

Working on large-scale paintings… that happened slowly. The first very large painting I made was 8’ x 18’, and it took me two years to complete, back in the late 90s or early 2000s. It was hell until the last moment, when a sentence from Cormac McCarthy’s The Road took my breath away, and I knew that with that one sentence as inspiration, I could solve something that had been giving me a hard time for long enough. (Poetry and prose are essential reading for me.) That painting was on wood panels. At a certain point, I turned it into a sculpture—a sort of structure to live inside. I was very frustrated as it had already been many paintings. The only recourse I seemed to have was to dare to solve it.

I’ve always been interested in making large-scale work, both in my job as a sculptor and when working with large groups of people. Whether it’s people or materials, it takes the same amount of energy and focus. I started making many more large-scale works, first around DNA discoveries and cloning, then around climate change, and later around women when I felt misogyny was on the rise again in 2015. Working on a large scale is not challenging for me—most of the time, anyway. Except for maybe seeing or realising them, which has been the absolute gift of my show at Impulse Gallery. The space is big and gorgeous, built at the beginning of the last century specifically for viewing art. The light in the gallery is incredible, as the ceilings are made of glass and reflect the light of the day, much like at the Tate. It is a huge blessing for me to have my work there—it feels like seeing it for the first time.

You often use gold leaf in your works, at times more visible and at others quite hidden. What is the significance of using this?

I use gold and silver leaf to alchemise a painting. Very often, the metals may be buried beneath minimalist under paintings and layers and layers of paint. I could say I aspire to minimalism, but that is not actually the truth. I am more of a neo-Baroque maximalist. But the bones of minimalism are there. Underneath. Minimalism is perhaps the best of painted bones. I hold it high and wish for it, but the process always gets the best of me. The gold and silver, whether showing or not, are there to alchemise the work, to help me transmute our times.

You also work in sculpture and installation in this exhibition. Please can you go into more detail with regards to these elements, in particular the installation They Never Died – Seven Roses?

They Never Died, Seven Roses, along with the book we created called They Never Died, is my version of honouring two important artists in my life who work in different forms. Amy Hosig is a great poet who, for lucky students, teaches in the creative writing department at NYU. Marcello Toledo is a brilliant composer of New Music. We loved to get together in NYC and would inspire one another’s highest works. You don’t forget people who have given you the courage to carry on. In the past, I made paintings around their work. This time, I knew that paintings would not do justice to Amy’s poems and Marcello’s piano music. I had to dig deeper to include a site-specific work around this collaboration, and I had to consider the space itself because of the nature of site-specific work. When you walk into the Impulse Gallery, there is a vestibule with galleries to the left and right. Straight in front of you is a sort of flume shape, where the space narrows, like the entrance to one of the great caves. Further on is the main chamber, which is a glorious space to view art, or a main chamber in a cave. I wanted to create a resting space for a viewer to shed the street and a space to slow down and listen.

My husband, Michael Kruaer, supported me by welding a wild armature for this listening centre. We then worked on the upholstery for the chair. We each had a grandfather who was an interior designer. I worked with velvet suede, as the marble floors of Impulse Gallery seemed to ask me to do this. The poems are exquisite, and Amy is my poet. Through the ages, artists and royalty have had their poets. The book that illustrates this for me, one that Amy shared with me, is the incredible Death of Virgil by Hermann Broch. Amy’s poems, which she newly titled They Never Died, were originally called “Seven Roses,” which is still the name of the musical score for Two Pianos by Marcello Toledo, which accompanies Amy’s spoken word recording. A suite of seven poems, they are, to me, absolutely exquisite and essential musings on life, death, and rebirth. To me, Amy’s poems are radically fifth-dimensional. Because of this, I made something that was multidimensional. I am inspired by Amy’s plight and her joy of life. She is one who has lost so many. For me, across from the listening centre, Seven Obsidian Mirrors are anchored to the wall. Obsidian mirrors were first used for the art of divination known as scrying by the Mayans. Scrying, or staring for a long while into this black obsidian mirror (obsidian is a volcanic glass that is then highly polished), “is a practice used for personal guidance, prophecy, revelation, or inspiration.” For me, in the gallery setting, these mirrors are portals to honour and communicate with the many souls who have left our earth most recently due to war, famine, and plague. A way to communicate with this dark age, to see where and when the light and a new Renaissance will arise. We stand on a precipice, and so do these poems and this music.

How do you expect visitors to respond to this piece, and to the exhibition overall?

Such a great question. I have absolutely no expectations. Viewers are new to me. This work is no longer mine, it now belongs to the viewer. I do realise that the Flume is rather the birth canal and the main gallery acts as the Uterus. It is feminine and so am I in this lifetime. I hope then, that all who see this show regardless of how they show up in this lifetime can experience the oneness that we are through my work. As Adrienne taught me, Ninekotiyape equals in definition ONENESS. May the new age be defined as seeing all as one.

There is a prevalent theme of change and anticipation throughout the show, on a scale between hope and mourning, or moving away from / moving towards. In your mind, is there more positivity or more despondence?

More positivity. We move from a dark age, which is my job to work through in my life and work and I am hopeful that in my lifetime I will witness the new Renaissance which I do witness now already within myself and within so many in the world. We are at the end of the time of the great destruction. The entire world must be ready to experience and to live as one.

How do you see your practice developing in the future?

I am very interested in painting shown in conjunction with multimedia site specific work. I love having the opportunity to show and to study the space well in advance. It is like being a snake, tasting the space, the geometry of the paintings in relationship to the space and creating sculptural forms that relate in some way to all of these elements. It is a way to echolocate the atmosphere, the body and the air of the times.

What would be your dream project?

My dream project is to have a show a year that supports culture in reading the times. Part of my dream project is that I can thrive from my work financially so that I can reinvest in the work and in the care of my well being as it takes much strength mentally and physically to generate the work. From this dream project all of the dreamscapes of the moment can be synthesised and included.

And lastly, what is the role of the artist, in your opinion?

My work as an artist is to be the mirror to synthesise and to transmute the times, one eye in the past, the second eye in the present and the third eye in the future. It is important for me that I can be a cultural shaman/healer to others through the work. I am sure every artist's definition is different.

And a quick fire 5: 

Any upcoming projects of note that you can discuss?

All top secret until they are revealed. ;)

What have been the most rewarding moments of your career thus far?

Sticking with my durational practices and self belief that there would be a time for my voice in the world. I am very clear that the time is now.

What’s the best advice you have ever received?

“Patience is an action.” Rodin

When not in the studio making artwork, where would we most likely find you?

In the yoga studio, practicing and sharing my Kundalini practice with others. It is a very life affirming practice for the times we live in and for our well being of moving through life and these particularly wild times. Working with private clients as a yoga therapist. Relaxing with my beautiful and beloved family. Going on long walks. Soaking up nature with mind and heart and eyes. Reading books that nourish my practices. Digging in the garden. Swimming. Taking a nap. Cooking something nourishing to eat. Looking at art while traveling. Living each moment with gratitude.

What do you love about Lucerne?

My wild good luck to have my work seen by Lucernians and those who travel to experience this beautiful place in the world. People seem warm and soft and curious in Lucerne. I love how the lake and mountains hold a full moon, this is a powerful yet protective feeling. Lucerne is a very vibratory place on earth. It is the belly buttonor Bauchnabel of Switzerland. I feel very blessed to view the world from here right now.

‘Transmissions’, a solo exhibition by Ann Tracy, runs at Impulse Gallery, Lucerne, until 21 December 2024. For more information visit impulsegallery.com.