Annemarie Waugh is a British born, New York-based visual artist, educator and curator working in painting, and installation. Waugh’s practice encompasses research based works, and public projects that involve community participation. Surreal narratives, nature and fiction are a connecting thread throughout her work—emerging in unexpected juxtapositions.
Waugh has exhibited her work at venues including MoCA LI, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Patchogue, Christie’s and The Royal College of Art, London, Orchard Street Gallery, NYC, Front Street Gallery, Brooklyn, The Islip Museum, You + Me, Artist Films, Berlin, The Long Island Museum, Gallery North, Serendip Gallery, Japan, Aferro Gallery, NJ, and The Lycuem Gallery, Riverhead among others.
Waugh has exhibited her work at venues including MoCA LI, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Patchogue, Christie’s and The Royal College of Art, London, Orchard Street Gallery, NYC, Front Street Gallery, Brooklyn, The Islip Museum, You + Me, Artist Films, Berlin, The Long Island Museum, Gallery North, Serendip Gallery, Japan, Aferro Gallery, NJ, and The Lycuem Gallery, Riverhead among others.
Education
MFA Stony Brook University
BA (Hons) Central Saint Martins
BA (Hons) Central Saint Martins
Solo Shows
2025
Across the Pond
The Lyceum Gallery
Riverhead, NY
2021
#Shucked
Lawrence Alloway Gallery
Stony Brook University
Stony Brook, NY
2013
Hanging on a Thread
Farmer’s Market Gallery
Vestibulum
Across the Pond
The Lyceum Gallery
Riverhead, NY
2021
#Shucked
Lawrence Alloway Gallery
Stony Brook University
Stony Brook, NY
2013
Hanging on a Thread
Farmer’s Market Gallery
Vestibulum
Selected Group Exhibitions
2025
Bitterest Sweet
Sylvester Manor
Shelter Island, NY
Bitterest Sweet is a site-specific art installation presented as part of the Sculpture @ Sylvester Manor: Paradise Lost exhibition curated by Tom Cugliani. The exhibit opened on Shelter Island, NY, on June 14th, 2025, and will be free and open to the public until September 14th, 2025. The exhibit is open dawn to dusk, 7 days a week. Located at Sylvester Manor / 80 North Ferry Road / Shelter, Island, NY.
Bitterest Sweet is dedicated to the enslaved Africans, Indigenous Manhansett People, and the Irish and English indentured servants who lived, worked, and died at Sylvester Manor. Bitterest Sweet features a walkway in the shape of the Nkyinkyim ‘twisting’ symbol of the Adinkra, which represents the Gyaman people of Ghana and the Côte d'Ivoire. The Nkyinkyim is a symbol representing the torturous nature of life's journey and the toughness, versatility, and dynamism required to thrive in it. It is also a symbol of dedication to service. The wavy line, which forms the main component in the design of the Nkyinkyim, depicts the meandering course of life’s journey. These ‘twists and turns’ stand as a monument to the adaptability, resilience, and versatility of those who came before, who navigated through life's complexities with wisdom and strength. The proverb associated with this symbol is “Ɔbra kwan yɛ nkyinkyimii,” which, when translated, means “Life’s road is twisted.”
The installation is also interactive, inviting visitors to walk the seven paths of the symbol while they behold the sculpture pieces and listen to the audio walk.
The installation is amplified by a digital audio walk, which is a combination of narrative script and original poetry, including literary works by Jupiter Hammon, Maya Angelou, Olivia Ward Bush-Banks, and Michelle Whittaker. The audio walk enhances the experience by allowing visitors to listen to the story of the enslaved Africans, the Indigenous Manhansett People, and Irish and English indentured servants who labored on Shelter Island. The story shared in the audio walk is heteroglossic in nature because it is not the story of a single person or a single group. Rather, it is an interconnected tapestry that weaves the experiences and challenges of various peoples. Thus, the recording is many-voiced, with people of different ages, accents, and genders reading various segments of the story. The audio walk is underscored by an original musical accompaniment composed by Tony Doyle, which captures the sounds of waves, the twitter of tropical birds, the sigh of the wind, African drums, fire, and the creak of ships. The audio walk can be accessed via QR codes.
This work is supported by Long Island Grants for the Arts through funds provided by the office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, and administered by The Huntington Arts Council.
We wish to acknowledge the support of Sylvester Manor, the English, art, and music departments at Stony Brook University, the VOICE Lab at Stony Brook University, the Boys and Girls Club of Shinnecock Nation, the Shelter Island School, The Church in Sag Harbor, Gallery North, Jeremy Dennis and Huntington Arts. We also wish to thank all our community participants from our workshops across Suffolk County. Permission for the audio use of a stanza from Maya Angelou's "Caged Bird published in SHAKER, WHY DON'T YOU SING, granted by Penguin Random House".
www.eastendbeacon.com/a-return-to-paradise-on-shelter-island
www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/07/03/travel/things-to-do-east-end.
southforker.com/2025/06/20/sculpture-sylvester-manor/https://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/html5/reader/production/default.aspx?pubname=&edid=4c4ac559-aed9-495b-b6ef-5e6e75ef8546
2025
Hale Gallery
Farmingdale State College
2024
Into the Spines
LI MOCA, Patchogue, NY
2023
Suffolk County Community College
Faculty Art Exhibition, Riverhead, NY
Bitterest Sweet
Sylvester Manor
Shelter Island, NY
Bitterest Sweet is a site-specific art installation presented as part of the Sculpture @ Sylvester Manor: Paradise Lost exhibition curated by Tom Cugliani. The exhibit opened on Shelter Island, NY, on June 14th, 2025, and will be free and open to the public until September 14th, 2025. The exhibit is open dawn to dusk, 7 days a week. Located at Sylvester Manor / 80 North Ferry Road / Shelter, Island, NY.
Bitterest Sweet is dedicated to the enslaved Africans, Indigenous Manhansett People, and the Irish and English indentured servants who lived, worked, and died at Sylvester Manor. Bitterest Sweet features a walkway in the shape of the Nkyinkyim ‘twisting’ symbol of the Adinkra, which represents the Gyaman people of Ghana and the Côte d'Ivoire. The Nkyinkyim is a symbol representing the torturous nature of life's journey and the toughness, versatility, and dynamism required to thrive in it. It is also a symbol of dedication to service. The wavy line, which forms the main component in the design of the Nkyinkyim, depicts the meandering course of life’s journey. These ‘twists and turns’ stand as a monument to the adaptability, resilience, and versatility of those who came before, who navigated through life's complexities with wisdom and strength. The proverb associated with this symbol is “Ɔbra kwan yɛ nkyinkyimii,” which, when translated, means “Life’s road is twisted.”
The installation is also interactive, inviting visitors to walk the seven paths of the symbol while they behold the sculpture pieces and listen to the audio walk.
The installation is amplified by a digital audio walk, which is a combination of narrative script and original poetry, including literary works by Jupiter Hammon, Maya Angelou, Olivia Ward Bush-Banks, and Michelle Whittaker. The audio walk enhances the experience by allowing visitors to listen to the story of the enslaved Africans, the Indigenous Manhansett People, and Irish and English indentured servants who labored on Shelter Island. The story shared in the audio walk is heteroglossic in nature because it is not the story of a single person or a single group. Rather, it is an interconnected tapestry that weaves the experiences and challenges of various peoples. Thus, the recording is many-voiced, with people of different ages, accents, and genders reading various segments of the story. The audio walk is underscored by an original musical accompaniment composed by Tony Doyle, which captures the sounds of waves, the twitter of tropical birds, the sigh of the wind, African drums, fire, and the creak of ships. The audio walk can be accessed via QR codes.
This work is supported by Long Island Grants for the Arts through funds provided by the office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, and administered by The Huntington Arts Council.
We wish to acknowledge the support of Sylvester Manor, the English, art, and music departments at Stony Brook University, the VOICE Lab at Stony Brook University, the Boys and Girls Club of Shinnecock Nation, the Shelter Island School, The Church in Sag Harbor, Gallery North, Jeremy Dennis and Huntington Arts. We also wish to thank all our community participants from our workshops across Suffolk County. Permission for the audio use of a stanza from Maya Angelou's "Caged Bird published in SHAKER, WHY DON'T YOU SING, granted by Penguin Random House".
www.eastendbeacon.com/a-return-to-paradise-on-shelter-island
www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/07/03/travel/things-to-do-east-end.
southforker.com/2025/06/20/sculpture-sylvester-manor/https://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/html5/reader/production/default.aspx?pubname=&edid=4c4ac559-aed9-495b-b6ef-5e6e75ef8546
2025
Hale Gallery
Farmingdale State College
2024
Into the Spines
LI MOCA, Patchogue, NY
2023
Suffolk County Community College
Faculty Art Exhibition, Riverhead, NY
MISS-INFORMATION
Artspeak
Press
Artspeak
Mix & Match:
Press
Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness [interrogate fractured temporalities]
After Harryette Mullen
with Elise Armani
A. abstraction, aesthetics, allegory, anatomy, Anthropocene, anthropomorphic, archetype, armature, artifice, artifacts, assemblage, avant-garde, authenticity, axiom, axiomatic B. Baroque, Bauhaus, biomorphic, bourgeois, Byzantine C. calligraphy, carapace, canon, caricature, carotenoid, chiaroscuro, circularity, coexist, collage, commodification, composition, conceptual, contemporaneous, critique, cubism, color theory, classical D. decadence, denote, denude, degradations, denominator, delineates, dialogical, detrimental, disjunction, dislocations, discern, destabilizing, discourse, dissensus E. ecofemminist, ekphrastic, efface, endogenous, enlightenment, elucidate, equipoise, etymology, expressionism, euphemistically, exigencies F. fabricate, facilitate, fecundity, figurability, formalism, fundamental, futurity G. geologically, genealogy, genre, gestalt, gestural, generative, gothic H. heuristic, hucksterism, hierarchy, hyperobjects I. Iconography, impressionism, inchoate, inculcate, ineradicable, inimical, immutability, incomprehensible, interrogate, iconoclasm, installations, interdisciplinary, interlocutor, interiority, inviolable J. jouissance K. Kairo, kitsch L. lacunae, litigiousness, liminalities, liturgical, luminosity M. medieval, misology, misreading, mimesis, minimalism, materiality, monochrome, mutability, multifaceted, metaphorically, memento mori, modernism N. nachleben, nachträglichkeit, neoclassicism, neologism, nonsensical, neutrality O. obdurate, oneiric, ontology, ontological, ontic, op art, organon, oeuvre, Orientalism, overemphasize P. paean, palpability, paradigmatic, paradigm, paradoxical, parergon, patriarchy, pastiching, pensée, percipient, pernicious, philological, physicality, phenomenological, plethora, philology, poiesis, polyphony, preliminaries, polis, pop art, pointillism, post-impressionism, propitious, prorogate, proselytism, protean, proliferated R. rapprochement, recrudescence, recalcitrant, reenactment, reification, recitation, reconsolidation, reterritorialization, readymades, reciprocity, reformulated, recontextualizes, rhetoric, realism, rococo, romanticism S. schema, schism, semiotic, seriality, sanguinary, sesquipedalian, sinewy, social realism, somatic, somnambulism, solipsism, specialism, subjectivity, surrealism, sfumato, symbolism T. temerity, terminus, terminology, temporality, territorialization, transgression, transactional, transfigured, transmogrify, triptych, tutelage U. ubiquitous, unheimlich, utopia V. validation, vernacular, vestige, Victorian, vicissitude, visibility, ventriloquize, vanitas W. wabi-sabi
‘Chuffed to Bits’ Annemarie Waugh’s playful ode to memory, language, and Britishness
By Danielle King
We tell ourselves stories to make sense of our histories, personal or collective, real or imagined.In her solo exhibition “Across the Pond,” Annemarie Waugh tells us playful tales constructedfrom the fragments of her youth growing up in Britain. Her work is less about a recollection offacts than the texture of memory itself: elusive, fractured, and steeped in language and humor.
Nostalgia is undeniably at play here. There are familiar faces, like the animated character MrBenn (from the escapist British tv series of the same name), characters one might recognize fromevenings spent gathered around a television glowing in a dim living room. But Waugh graspsthat nostalgia is slippery terrain, riddled with irony and contradiction. Her canvases, somestretching to six feet, contain glimpses of tartans, foliage, pastries, playgrounds, and animalsintermingled with abstract gestures.
Such deliberate fragmentation feels apt. Memory seldom behaves neatly; it stutters, glitches, andcollides into fresh configurations, revealing stories more complicated and more compelling thanfacts ever could. The artist’s employment of data moshing - a digital technique that intentionallydistorts images - reflects the fragmented nature of memory itself. In her cut paper works, Waughaddresses the gaps in memory, the spaces where details fade or vanish. The careful yet childlikeact of cutting paper becomes an apt metaphor for the holes that punctuate our recollections.
Central to Waugh’s practice is language: colloquialisms from English, Irish, Welsh, Gaelic,Scottish, Cornish, and Yiddish are used as inspirations for and titles of many of the works in thisexhibition. It’s the slang of her childhood, overheard at the corner shop or on the British railplatform. Waugh’s use of language, like conceptual artist Barbara Kruger’s, is deliberate, butgentler. Where Kruger’s words provoke, Waugh’s wink. Expressions such as “Bob’s your uncle”or “It’s all swings and roundabouts” offer comfort rather than confrontation. Waugh previouslyscrawled British idioms in chalk on a large wall; ephemeral words soon erased. In “Across thePond,” these expressions become permanent, though their meanings remain fluid.
Waugh’s affection for “faffing around”- British slang for spending time idly, fiddling, dallying -is central to her artistic process. This spirit of tinkering and experimentation is evident throughout her work, allowing for discoveries that structured planning rarely permits.
In the Ancient Clan, Tartan paintings, Waugh reinterprets traditional Scottish tartan throughexaggerated brushstrokes and fluid lines, challenging the structured rigidity associated with clanpatterns. This irreverence toward heritage recalls fashion designer Vivienne Westwood’s punkreinventions of classic British motifs. Both artists understand tradition as something vulnerableand open to reinterpretation.
Another painting, Twee Bunny, exemplifies Waugh’s whimsical style. The rabbit, painted insimple, expressive lines reminiscent of a child’s drawing, conveys a lighthearted innocence.Abstract shapes, grids, and spontaneous paint gestures disrupt this scene, though, suggesting complexity beneath the surface. Here, as in classic British animations like Wallace and Gromit,humor moves slyly, working double-time to charm children and whisper clever asides to adults.
Annemarie Waugh’s Britain is both familiar and strange, a place defined by the simple pleasuresand pains of everyday life: clotted cream teas, jumble sales, Victorian seaside piers, and ever-present rain. Her work reminds us that memory, identity, and language are interpretative acts. In“Across the Pond,” Waugh crafts a narrative less about the Britain that was and more about theBritain we imagine - elusive and comforting, forever receding just beyond our grasp.
36 Hours on the East End: Things to Do and See
The New York Times,
by Add
2025
Action-spectacle
www.action-spectacle.com/summer-2024-part-iii/waugh
2024
Dictumst Tristique, Facilisis Magazine,
Edition Two, Porta Libero
2021
Auctor Adipiscing Art Magazine,
Porta Libero
2020
After Harryette Mullen
with Elise Armani
A. abstraction, aesthetics, allegory, anatomy, Anthropocene, anthropomorphic, archetype, armature, artifice, artifacts, assemblage, avant-garde, authenticity, axiom, axiomatic B. Baroque, Bauhaus, biomorphic, bourgeois, Byzantine C. calligraphy, carapace, canon, caricature, carotenoid, chiaroscuro, circularity, coexist, collage, commodification, composition, conceptual, contemporaneous, critique, cubism, color theory, classical D. decadence, denote, denude, degradations, denominator, delineates, dialogical, detrimental, disjunction, dislocations, discern, destabilizing, discourse, dissensus E. ecofemminist, ekphrastic, efface, endogenous, enlightenment, elucidate, equipoise, etymology, expressionism, euphemistically, exigencies F. fabricate, facilitate, fecundity, figurability, formalism, fundamental, futurity G. geologically, genealogy, genre, gestalt, gestural, generative, gothic H. heuristic, hucksterism, hierarchy, hyperobjects I. Iconography, impressionism, inchoate, inculcate, ineradicable, inimical, immutability, incomprehensible, interrogate, iconoclasm, installations, interdisciplinary, interlocutor, interiority, inviolable J. jouissance K. Kairo, kitsch L. lacunae, litigiousness, liminalities, liturgical, luminosity M. medieval, misology, misreading, mimesis, minimalism, materiality, monochrome, mutability, multifaceted, metaphorically, memento mori, modernism N. nachleben, nachträglichkeit, neoclassicism, neologism, nonsensical, neutrality O. obdurate, oneiric, ontology, ontological, ontic, op art, organon, oeuvre, Orientalism, overemphasize P. paean, palpability, paradigmatic, paradigm, paradoxical, parergon, patriarchy, pastiching, pensée, percipient, pernicious, philological, physicality, phenomenological, plethora, philology, poiesis, polyphony, preliminaries, polis, pop art, pointillism, post-impressionism, propitious, prorogate, proselytism, protean, proliferated R. rapprochement, recrudescence, recalcitrant, reenactment, reification, recitation, reconsolidation, reterritorialization, readymades, reciprocity, reformulated, recontextualizes, rhetoric, realism, rococo, romanticism S. schema, schism, semiotic, seriality, sanguinary, sesquipedalian, sinewy, social realism, somatic, somnambulism, solipsism, specialism, subjectivity, surrealism, sfumato, symbolism T. temerity, terminus, terminology, temporality, territorialization, transgression, transactional, transfigured, transmogrify, triptych, tutelage U. ubiquitous, unheimlich, utopia V. validation, vernacular, vestige, Victorian, vicissitude, visibility, ventriloquize, vanitas W. wabi-sabi
‘Chuffed to Bits’ Annemarie Waugh’s playful ode to memory, language, and Britishness
By Danielle King
We tell ourselves stories to make sense of our histories, personal or collective, real or imagined.In her solo exhibition “Across the Pond,” Annemarie Waugh tells us playful tales constructedfrom the fragments of her youth growing up in Britain. Her work is less about a recollection offacts than the texture of memory itself: elusive, fractured, and steeped in language and humor.
Nostalgia is undeniably at play here. There are familiar faces, like the animated character MrBenn (from the escapist British tv series of the same name), characters one might recognize fromevenings spent gathered around a television glowing in a dim living room. But Waugh graspsthat nostalgia is slippery terrain, riddled with irony and contradiction. Her canvases, somestretching to six feet, contain glimpses of tartans, foliage, pastries, playgrounds, and animalsintermingled with abstract gestures.
Such deliberate fragmentation feels apt. Memory seldom behaves neatly; it stutters, glitches, andcollides into fresh configurations, revealing stories more complicated and more compelling thanfacts ever could. The artist’s employment of data moshing - a digital technique that intentionallydistorts images - reflects the fragmented nature of memory itself. In her cut paper works, Waughaddresses the gaps in memory, the spaces where details fade or vanish. The careful yet childlikeact of cutting paper becomes an apt metaphor for the holes that punctuate our recollections.
Central to Waugh’s practice is language: colloquialisms from English, Irish, Welsh, Gaelic,Scottish, Cornish, and Yiddish are used as inspirations for and titles of many of the works in thisexhibition. It’s the slang of her childhood, overheard at the corner shop or on the British railplatform. Waugh’s use of language, like conceptual artist Barbara Kruger’s, is deliberate, butgentler. Where Kruger’s words provoke, Waugh’s wink. Expressions such as “Bob’s your uncle”or “It’s all swings and roundabouts” offer comfort rather than confrontation. Waugh previouslyscrawled British idioms in chalk on a large wall; ephemeral words soon erased. In “Across thePond,” these expressions become permanent, though their meanings remain fluid.
Waugh’s affection for “faffing around”- British slang for spending time idly, fiddling, dallying -is central to her artistic process. This spirit of tinkering and experimentation is evident throughout her work, allowing for discoveries that structured planning rarely permits.
In the Ancient Clan, Tartan paintings, Waugh reinterprets traditional Scottish tartan throughexaggerated brushstrokes and fluid lines, challenging the structured rigidity associated with clanpatterns. This irreverence toward heritage recalls fashion designer Vivienne Westwood’s punkreinventions of classic British motifs. Both artists understand tradition as something vulnerableand open to reinterpretation.
Another painting, Twee Bunny, exemplifies Waugh’s whimsical style. The rabbit, painted insimple, expressive lines reminiscent of a child’s drawing, conveys a lighthearted innocence.Abstract shapes, grids, and spontaneous paint gestures disrupt this scene, though, suggesting complexity beneath the surface. Here, as in classic British animations like Wallace and Gromit,humor moves slyly, working double-time to charm children and whisper clever asides to adults.
Annemarie Waugh’s Britain is both familiar and strange, a place defined by the simple pleasuresand pains of everyday life: clotted cream teas, jumble sales, Victorian seaside piers, and ever-present rain. Her work reminds us that memory, identity, and language are interpretative acts. In“Across the Pond,” Waugh crafts a narrative less about the Britain that was and more about theBritain we imagine - elusive and comforting, forever receding just beyond our grasp.
36 Hours on the East End: Things to Do and See
The New York Times,
by Add
2025
Action-spectacle
www.action-spectacle.com/summer-2024-part-iii/waugh
2024
Dictumst Tristique, Facilisis Magazine,
Edition Two, Porta Libero
2021
Auctor Adipiscing Art Magazine,
Porta Libero
2020