Artist Lecture Series

Annie Decamp

Annie Decamp began painting and exploring jewelry design in 2000.  She ran a successful jewelry business for twelve years practicing lost wax casting before transitioning her love of working with wax as a medium to encaustic painting and eventually mixed media. Today, her figurative work explores people and cultures where she leans on her degree in history with a minor in Art History from U.C. Berkeley. Her work begins with research into late 19th and mid-20th century black and white photographs. She typically paints from those photographs using charcoal, oil, and encaustic, or alters the images digitally before painting onto them with the same materials. This process and mixture of mediums speak to the complexity of human nature and ontology as well as the many layers of the human story that captivates her.

In 2022, Annie went through two near death experiences, a rare lung disease that threatened her painting career, and a home invasion where she was held at gunpoint. These encounters created trauma and asked her to reevaluate her beliefs and her journey. When she returned to painting, she dove into the concept of survival and intimacy that she responded to in two directions. Firstly, she began a series of archer paintings as a theme of “braving the wilderness” in the lightness of day and the darkness of night. Secondly, as a response to feelings of mistrust and consideration of human immorality, she stepped away from figurative work and dove into florals and still lives.

Annie’s show titled “This is no Way to Behave, Please Act Accordingly” at Kuehl Fine art explores the duality of these themes.

• WWW: annie-decamp-art.com