Amy Anna - Curriculum Vitae

Biography  

Art has been a main thread woven throughout my life.  As a child I drew everyday, filling sheets with faces and pictures of nature.  I attended the Moore College of Art Program for High School Students in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  I received a partial scholarship to Moore College of Art.  However, as important as art was to me, I also had a great love of learning and academics.  I was an outstanding student and transferred to Neumann College in Aston, Pennsylvania to pursue academic success.  I graduated Magna Cum Laude and went on to Rutgers University School of Law in Camden, New Jersey.  Again, I was able to graduate Magna Cum Laude.  I landed the prestigious position of law clerk for the Fourth Circuit Court of the Federal Court System.  I then worked as an associate at several firms and the Delaware County Legal Aid.   In 1997, my husband and I started our own law firm, Anna & Anna, P.C.  We specialize in immigration law.  The firm has rapidly grown into a full service immigration practice with related legal services available as required.  Our mission is client satisfaction.  Careful client selection and open lines of communication accomplish this priority.  Our experience covers all levels of immigration work including document preparation, filing, and litigation before both the immigration and federal courts.  We are currently the only full service immigration firm in Delaware County, PA.  My husband served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Mali, West Africa.  He is a well known community advocate in the African and Hispanic communities in southeastern Pennsylvania.   

1997 was a pivotal year for me.  I returned to my art on a daily basis when I enrolled at the internationally renowned Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA).  I have since participated in art shows in Pennsylvania and  New Jersey.  I have received several awards, and exhibited my work in two solo shows.

Artist Statement  

I work in acrylic, pastel, ink collage, and sculpture.  My work often combines descriptive realism with an air of romantic reverie. My descriptions of figures, of water, of landscape, and of light bridge the real and the imaginary.  I use light and color to create images on the border between dream and reality, between fantasy and truth. 

I paint because I want to chronicle my emotional response to the visual world.  I not only want the viewer to see what I saw, but also, in some sense, to feel what I felt about a subject. Rather than concentrate on the details of an image, I hope to allow someone to sense the mood of a certain day, the atmosphere of a particular place. In a way, I want to start a dialogue between the picture and the viewer.  I don’t want to dominate that conversation, however; that is not my job.  I want to suggest my ideas, not impose my thoughts on the art lover.  I hope my paintings are open invitations to explore aspects of the world.