May 27 - Friday, June 17
Exhibition Opening: Thursday, May 26, 5–7pm

@annacowleyford www.annacowleyford.com

Anna Cowley Ford

Anna Cowley Ford is a postdisciplinary artist from rural West Texas. Using her experiences living with chronic health conditions as a touchstone, Ford explores the often bizarre world of living with chronic pain and disabilities. Along with manifesting sensory experiences, her artwork conveys the social and domestic impacts of health conditions on a chronic scale and the patient’s experience navigating the US healthcare system. Ford’s practice includes, but is not limited to, functional and sculptural ceramics, textiles, large scale installations, video, and accumulated medical objects and documents. Artwork like self-portrait ceramic busts and fabric figures instigate conversations around the body, non-visible sensory experiences, and disability.
Depression Chiffon and hair Dimensions vary, 2022

Antagonistic Care / Care to Antagonize: Tools for Subversion: Working within a posthumanis perspective, Antagonistic Care / Care to Antagonize: Tools for Subversion presents an artistic framework for subverting inhumane systems of power. While exploring social injustice found in contemporary healthcare and disability culture, this thesis situates Ford’s artist practice within the tools of autotheory, craft, abjection, the uncanny, humor, and commodification, which she uses to make radical art. She draws on her lived experience of disabling health conditions to explore craft and making traditions with the experience of disabling health conditions.


Bread Head Bread 0’9” x 0’6” x 0’8” 2021 [this is meaningful to me right now]: Please take one if you would like. Perfect for refrigerators, strangers, or altars! Postcard 0’4”x0’6” 2022 [this is meaningful to me right now]: Please take one if you would like. Perfect for refrigerators, strangers, or altars! Postcard 0’4”x0’6” 2022 Suet Head, laterSuet, wild game camera, wildlife collaborator Dimensions vary 2021 Bread Head, later Bread, wild game camera, wildlife collaborator Dimensions vary 2021 Depression (detail), Chiffon and hair Dimensions vary 2022 Suet Head, later Suet, wild game camera, wildlife collaborator Dimensions vary 2022 Bread Head, later Bread, wild game camera, wildlife collaborator Dimensions vary 2021 [this is meaningful to me right now]: Please take one if you would like. Perfect for refrigerators, strangers, or altars! Postcard 0’4”x0’6” 2022

This year’s exhibition features work in a variety of media, including: drawing; video; performance; sculpture; painting; printmaking; virtual reality; fiber; photography; and, installation. Seen together, the thesis projects hybridize a range of conceptual themes and material approaches as they relate to visual culture, the political landscape and to contemporary art practice. The work in the exhibition represents the synthesis of each graduate candidate’s experience in the Master of Fine Arts in Studio Art program at Maine College of Art & Design.


2022 MFA artists:
Kadie [Daniels] Annice, Anna Cowley Ford, Nicholas Goodhue, Andrea Jacobs, Thao Kieu, Michelle Lassaline, Johab Silva, Allie Wittman, and Jordan Wood.

Summer 2022 MFA Visiting Artists:
Daniela Rivera, Matt Hutton, Martha Buskirk, Lauren Mabry, Jarrett Earnest, Alysha Kupferer, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Dylan Hausther, Shirley Tse, Josh Diehle, and Patrick Coughlin.
MFA Graduate faculty:
Chris Stiegler, Chair of the MFA in Studio Art and Assistant Professor of Art History
Gail Spaien, Professor of the MFA in Studio Art + Painting
Adriane Herman, Professor of the MFA in Studio Art + Printmaking
Joshua Reiman, Associate Professor of the MFA in Studio Art + Sculpture
Ling-Wen Tsai, Professor of Sculpture and Foundations + MFA in Studio Art
Kyle Patnaude, Visiting Assistant Professor, Metalsmithing & Jewelry + MFA in Studio Art
Nico Jenkins, Visiting Associate Professor, Academic Studies + MFA In Studio Art
Julie Poitras Santos, Director of Exhibitions + Assistant Professor of the MFA
Lauren Fensterstock, Adjunct Assistant Professor of the MFA in Studio Art
Seth Rogoff, Adjunct Instructor of History + MFA in Studio Art
Marla McLeod, Adjunct Faculty, MFA in Studio Art
Tracey Cockrell, Adjunct Faculty, MFA in Studio Art
Gonzalo Reyes Rodriguez, Adjunct Faculty, MFA in Studio Art








Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art & Design
522 Congress St.Portland, ME 04101

Gallery Hours: Wed–Sun, 11:00am–5:00pm, Thursday, 11:00am–7:00pm