I Am My White Ancestors: Claiming the Legacy of Oppression by Anne Mavor

SEPTEMBER 12th – OCTOBER 29th

I Am My White Ancestors: Claiming the Legacy of Oppression

I Am My White Ancestors is a multi-disciplinary installation and public engagement project. It contains thirteen life-size photographic portraits that explore European-American heritage, family history, and its role in the history of race, class, colonization, and genocide. The real and imagined characters span over 2000 years from the Celtic Iron Age to the present day with the artist’s contemporary persona. The 84” x 54” portraits, printed on fabric panels, are accompanied by audio and written narratives from the perspective of each ancestor. The installation also includes a sharing station where viewers can write their responses.

Biography

Anne Mavor is a visual artist and writer based in Portland, Oregon. Her work combines storytelling, research, performance, imagery, and collaboration to illuminate social and personal issues. This has included painting, printmaking, book arts, sculpture, installation, and performance. Originally from Massachusetts, in 1976 she moved to Los Angeles to join the Feminist Studio Workshop at The Woman’s Building where she studied performance with Suzanne Lacy. She has lived in Portland since 1990.

Anne received grants from the John Anson Kittredge Fund for her book Strong Hearts, Inspired Minds: 21 Artists who are Mothers tell their Stories, published in 1996 and from The Mesa Refuge for a writing residency. Since 2010 paintings from her Mounds and Stones series have been exhibited in Oregon, Washington, and Massachusetts. The touring installation I Am My White Ancestors: Claiming the Legacy of Oppression premiered in 2016 and has been supported by The Puffin Foundation and the Regional Arts and Culture Commission. Her gouache series, Healing Images, was displayed at the Art Hall at Cedarwood Waldorf School in October 2022. Since 2020 she has been developing The Plant Beings, wall pieces and outdoor installations using botanical contact prints. Anne has a BA in art from Kirkland College and an MFA in creative writing from Antioch University, LA.

Anne grew up in Woods Hole. Her mother Mary Mavor was an artist and a founder of the Falmouth Artist Guild. Her father James W Mavor Jr was an astroarchaeology researcher in the area and wrote Manitou: The Sacred Landscape of New England’s Native Civilization. Anne’s 2016 exhibit at Highfield Hall of encaustic landscape paintings, Mounds and Stones, was inspired by his research photos. Her sister Salley Mavor, a well-known artist and illustrator, lives in Falmouth.

Artist statement

My artwork combines storytelling, research, performance, imagery, and collaboration to illuminate social and personal issues. This has included painting, printmaking, book arts, sculpture, installation, and performance. Using my own life as source material, I have explored and contradicted sexism, parent and artist oppression, disability, white supremacy, disconnection from place and home, and illness. Though the media and form shifts, the source of my content is constant. I trust that the topics that interest and inspire me will also reflect universal human experience. The genesis of I Am My White Ancestors was a question that I posed to myself in 2013. What would it look like to claim my people? A complete vision of the artwork arose in my mind, and I spent the next few years creating it. The project utilized everything I knew how to do: research history, make costumes, write stories, create and embody personas, paint images, design signage, understand my role in oppression, and create educational contexts.

This exhibit is made possible in part by the Edward Bangs Kelley and Elza Kelley Foundation, Inc.