Anvi Stevens
We are thrilled to shine a spotlight on Anvi Stevens, a visual artist who was published in Issue 41 of Create! Magazine.
Anvi Stevens is a visual artist who works in painting, drawing, and fabric art. She grew up in Gujarat, India, and currently lives in Wakefield, Massachusetts, where she works with collections and archives at local historical societies. She received a Bachelor of Visual Arts from Maharaja Sayajirao University of Vadodara, India, and a Master of Fine Arts from Boston University. Anvi's work has been exhibited in two-person and group shows at galleries including Tiger Strikes Asteroid in Brooklyn, Commonwealth Gallery, and Multicultural Arts Center in Boston, as well as L. & P. Hutheesing Center and Kanoria Gallery in Ahmedabad, India. She is the recipient of several awards, including the Writer/Artist Book Project at B.U. and a 'notable recognition' by The Arts Society of India.
Her paintings range from small handheld works on paper to large-scale fabric tapestries. She often acquires fabric from her mother’s collection, which she uses as her ‘canvas’ to dye and paint on, and then, through hand and machine stitching techniques, transforms them into actualized wall hangings. For her most recent undertaking, ‘Remnants of the Everyday,’ Anvi marks each day of this year with an individual piece within the framework of a 3”x3” canvas.
Anvi’s paintings are experiences created as landscapes through which to navigate. The practice involves the collection of found papers, objects, and fabrics to record her daily life as a way of preserving memories. Her work questions the concepts of beauty and attractiveness, origin and function, and the known and the unknown.
Artist Statement:
Active transitions often call for reflexes that fail to register emotions in the conscious mind. The body adapts to the constant movement of submitting itself to a routine. The repetitive and slow process of meticulous mark-making or stitching fabric by hand helps me to step back and reminisce. I reciprocate to the organic evolution of the substantial world relative to the displacement of the body. It is a practice of acknowledging each step on a walk. It is a practice of accounting for each new day in life.
When varied shapes are put together they form a landscape - a metaphor for walking through a space and becoming lost in the details. A conscious effort is made to register these impalpable behavioral patterns. Tactility of the materials, density of the lines, and their arrangements on the surface evoke a sensorial interpretation. The rhythm and flow serve as a visual navigation. The moments of absurdity are frozen for contemplation and discovery.
Can a discarded piece of cloth be beautiful? Who wrote this note? What would have happened if…?
These wall-hanging fabric pieces are storehouses of memories and lived experiences. They are made with commonplace materials - appropriated to form personified decorative objects with a ‘showcase-life’ for us to revisit memories or reveal something new about themselves.
