Anna Evans: Mutualism

The Prehistoric Museum at Utah State University Eastern is proud to announce Mutualism, by artist Anna Evans. For this new collection, Evans has created 14 large abstract fiber and mixed media sculptures inspired by mutually beneficial relationships between organisms in the natural environment of the Colorado Plateau Desert.

Evans’ work embraces myriad mediums and disciplines in fiber and craft, each requiring years of careful mastery. She employs a regenerative art practice with strict material sourcing, including organically grown dye plants, fiber from small regional farms, and second-hand fabric. Dedicated to sustainable and traditional hand process, her work is imbued with a deep and tactile intimacy. Each piece she creates is the product of a slow, organic aggregation, every gesture in concert with the ancient meter of Earth’s long song. The resulting pieces evoke the matchless geometries of the American West found in desert landscapes exposed through aggressive erosion and traditional quilt blocks passed down from generations of women in her family. Evans’ work constitutes a perpetual blossoming of meticulous process in vivid color and rich textural presence.

With Mutualism, Evans creates a fantastical menagerie of dreamscape flora and fauna, exploring the delicate and enigmatic ways in which organisms have adapted to help each other succeed. The works in Mutualism are whimsical and surreal interpretations of the organisms and elements they represent, a formalistic meditation on the colors, patterns, and rhythms of the natural world that inspire and, quite literally, constitute her pieces. “My work is a collaboration with my community and habitat, fostering relationships with farmers for fiber and manure, fabric which has passed through neighbors’ homes and lives, and plants that depend on me to nourish and tend them.” The resulting collection expresses the desert’s bizarre singularity as a new and bold sculpture garden of weird and wonderful forms.