Photo by Formidable Entities, taken on my great-grandfather's grave
Statement:
I grew up in rural Appalachian Maryland, where I spent most of my time alone observing changes in the forest, casting spells, and wishing for friends. That wish did eventually come true, and people in my life now often confide in me their feelings of alienation. As an educator, I mentor teenagers who struggle with loneliness and excessive self-criticism. As an organizer I've helped build coalitions when aggressive, better-resourced forces have tried to keep us separated. These forms of disconnection are entwined with an old and escalating process of political disenfranchisement in the USA, as people are forcibly removed from their communities and denied agency of their own bodies, as predatory corporations harvest our attention as we hustle just to get by. The alienation and violence echoes through our bodies and minds. In response to these systems of manipulation, my art practice facilitates an alternative attention to our surroundings and each other by proposing unusual modes of relation. By using banal experiences as reference points (a bucket, folding chairs, plastic straws), I rearrange our shared physical reality in unexpected, sometimes humorous ways. Meaning and connection can be felt through moments of synchronicity and invisible phenomena made perceptible, such as a bucket filled with water from every sink in the building in which it sits, or soil taken from a remote ICE detention center. By inventing ways to orient ourselves, I try to reveal resonance and significance obscured by systems that dehumanize and separate.
Bio:
Gwyneth Zeleny Anderson is an artist using inefficient processes to reveal relationships. They have presented work in a wide range of dignified and unassuming places, including Roman Susan Art Foundation, Weinberg/Newton Gallery, the Chicago Cultural Center, Roots & Culture, and the Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago), MoMA PS1 Print Shop and All Things Project (New York), FringeArts and Big Ramp (Philadelphia), Peephole Cinema (San Francisco), St. Charles Projects (Baltimore), and the Freies Museum (Berlin). They've been an artist-in-residence at the Institute for Electronic Arts (New York), the Experimental Sound Studio (Chicago), Utopiana (Switzerland), and FRISE (Germany), among others. Their work is included in collections at FRISE and the Institute of Contemporary Art Library in Baltimore, and their projects have been included in the publications Newcity, Teen Vogue, MONDAY Arts Journal, SENSUS, and the AMA Journal of Ethics. Gwyneth was trained in Pauline Oliveros' Deep Listening program, and earned their MFA from the Tyler School of Art and Architecture and BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. They live in Philadelphia.
Interviews and press:
Embodiment in Art Practice by Michaela Chan, AMA Journal of Ethics, June 2025
Interview with Tate Shaw on Mouth Sounds, WAYO community radio, June 2024
Interview with Dan Manion on Inside the Edition, Chicago Printmakers Guild podcast, April 2022
Interview with Nance Klehm on Lumpen Radio, October 2021
Return to the Everywhere at Weinberg/Newton Gallery, Chicago Artist Writers, March 2020
Survey for White Artists, Monday Journal, April 2020
Bill Meyer reviews Chyme, Dusted Magazine, March 2019
Interview with Stacia Yeapanis for OtherPeoplesPixels, December 2014
Laughing Video recommendation, Chicago Magazine, November 2011
