The first thing one notices upon entering Birmingham artist Annie Kammerer Butrus’ light-filled downtown studio are stacks of brightly colored films cut into abstract shapes.
The shapes are the result of Butrus’ practice of tracing shadows; the concepts of time, contrast and change are enduring themes throughout her work. Butrus captures fleeting moments in time by tracing shadows and then keeps only the shadow's shape.
As the youngest of seven kids, Butrus has always been aware of time and space. Each piece within a series, she muses, is like a sibling. “One of the things we were taught in art school is to always know your why,” she states. And while she does allow room for play and creative detours, overall, Butrus' why can be described as “taking a lot of bittersweet ideas and trying to communicate them through color and shape.”
Since relocating to Birmingham from the Midwest, Butrus has always created landscapes. “The landscape here is much more developed than I anticipated. I was always getting lost—so I would just look up,” she laughs. The idea of looking up, through the trees—or looking through the debris in the case of water—continues to inspire Butrus as she contemplates how place defines us. Studying how we change when the surrounding landscape evolves continues to push Butrus to create.
COLOR RESPONSE
"I like figuring out how to show strong emotions via color," Butrus says. "One day joy may be yellow, the next day anxiety may be yellow."
Color Response is a community project developed a year and a half ago; since then, Butrus has been visiting hospitals and schools and having doctors, teachers and students respond to the question: “how do you feel today?" by selecting two paint colors that most match their current emotional landscape. “I paint one for them and one for me. They are all signed and numbered. The idea is to see over time what colors were chosen,” Butrus states. Her ambitious goal is to create 100,000 pieces over 10 years.
Participants are asked to simply trust their creative instincts. At its completion, the Color Response collection can be installed and exhibited by location, timestamp, or color.
Process
Butrus paints using latex resist and flat acrylic paint. Like the change she captures by tracing shadows, one important change to her process came when she was forced to switch from oil to acrylic when pregnant with her first son after developing an oil allergy from doing murals. In addition, Butrus uses gouache and watercolor in her works.
As Seen In
Butrus recently participated in a group show at Ground Floor Contemporary entitled EURYTOPIC and was a featured artist in last summer’s inaugural Alabama Triennial, hosted by the Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts. This November, she will exhibit at Lowe Mill ARTS & Entertainment in Huntsville. Birmingham Lifestyle readers should expect news of Butrus’ inclusion in a major international exhibit by the end of this year.
Inspired by
Josef Albers is a go-to inspiration, as are the paper cutouts made by Henri Matisse in the last decade of his life.
Butrus recalls hearing a recent interview with Emmylou Harris, where the singer spoke about being drawn to things so bittersweet—so syrupy and painful—to be rendered heartbreakingly beautiful. This place of contrast is the “sweet spot” Butrus works to uncover and portray.
Background
Butrus earned her MFA from the University of Notre Dame in painting and printmaking and her undergraduate degree in studio art from Wellesley College. She has exhibited nationally and has work featured in many prominent public and private collections across the country.
Representation
Annie Kammerer Butrus is represented by Thomas Deans Fine Art in Atlanta and locally by Canary Gallery:
canarygalleryllc.com/annie-kammerer-butrus
