About Anna Guyton
Anna Guyton is a photographer and fat activist who was born and raised in Fayetteville, AR. They recently completed their undergraduate degree in studio art from Reed College. Anna’s art practice emphasizes photography’s materiality through physical manipulations of prints and employs photography as a means of representing the embodied self, reclaiming space, and fat/queer liberation. Their work has been exhibited in various Portland area galleries, including Blackfish Gallery’s Recent Graduates Exhibition and the Blue Sky Photography Center’s 2022 PNW Drawers, and also throughout Northwest Arkansas at Fenix Arts, Local Color Gallery, and The Walton Arts Center. Anna’s first solo exhibition will be on display June 2023 at Sequoyah Hall on Mt. Sequoyah.
My practice employs art as a means of representing the embodied self, reclaiming space, and fat/queer liberation. Growing up fat during the so-called “obesity epidemic” infused my psyche with stigma. From a young age I was made to understand my body as inherently flawed, something to change, and a threat to my own well being. By making art with and about fat and queer bodies, I have discovered a genuine love of my form that once seemed impossible. I am inviting you to shamelessly connect with your flesh and re-examine your assumptions of fatness as an image, word, and experience.
My experimental inkjet prints begin as digital images, but take on a new life once they are printed on unprimed paper, which cannot absorb ink. The resulting image is wet, feral, and abstracted while still being indexically photographic. The fluid print transgresses borders, it reflects the violation of order and space that is commonly prescribed to fat bodies and queer bodies. The prints, as well as the forms they depict, exude a palpable presence and speak to one another's unapologetic physicality.
About the art
Anna Guyton is a photographer and fat activist who was born and raised in Fayetteville, AR. They recently completed their undergraduate degree in studio art from Reed College. Anna’s art practice emphasizes photography’s materiality through physical manipulations of prints and employs photography as a means of representing the embodied self, reclaiming space, and fat/queer liberation. Their work has been exhibited in various Portland area galleries, including Blackfish Gallery’s Recent Graduates Exhibition and the Blue Sky Photography Center’s 2022 PNW Drawers, and also throughout Northwest Arkansas at Fenix Arts, Local Color Gallery, and The Walton Arts Center. Anna’s first solo exhibition will be on display June 2023 at Sequoyah Hall on Mt. Sequoyah.
My practice employs art as a means of representing the embodied self, reclaiming space, and fat/queer liberation. Growing up fat during the so-called “obesity epidemic” infused my psyche with stigma. From a young age I was made to understand my body as inherently flawed, something to change, and a threat to my own well being. By making art with and about fat and queer bodies, I have discovered a genuine love of my form that once seemed impossible. I am inviting you to shamelessly connect with your flesh and re-examine your assumptions of fatness as an image, word, and experience.
My experimental inkjet prints begin as digital images, but take on a new life once they are printed on unprimed paper, which cannot absorb ink. The resulting image is wet, feral, and abstracted while still being indexically photographic. The fluid print transgresses borders, it reflects the violation of order and space that is commonly prescribed to fat bodies and queer bodies. The prints, as well as the forms they depict, exude a palpable presence and speak to one another's unapologetic physicality.