Ahna Serendren

Instagram: @ahnaserendren

Website: http://www.ahnaserendren.com

Bio: Ahna Serendren was born and raised in Southern California. She holds an MFA in combined media from Hunter College in New York City, a BFA in painting from the San Francisco Art Institute and a BA in English literature and creative writing from UCLA. Color, texture and experimentation with non-traditional tools and materials play a central role in Ahna’s painting practice. Her current paintings include pigments, dyes and inks made with stones, sand, clay and flowers collected from her local environment in the San Francisco Bay Area. Selected exhibitions of Ahna’s work include Rip Current at The Yard in Brooklyn, Fruits of Labor at apexart in New York City, In Flux at the Museum of Northern California Art in Chico, and the Every Woman Biennial in Los Angeles. Her work resides in private collections in New York, Los Angeles and London.

Statement: Serendren's current painting process begins with field work in nature, during which she is often accompanied by her six-year-old daughter, Eleanora. Together they collect stones from local creek beds, flowers grown in their home garden or sand and clay from the Bay Area’s wealth of open spaces. Back in the studio, Serendren creates natural pigments, inks and dyes through a process she likes to think of as part lab work, part alchemy. Drawing from research into the historical or symbolic significance of various plants and earth pigments, and their medicinal properties, Serendren’s paintings layer and play with the various metaphors and meanings given to these natural elements over time. Made with materials that are often prone to change as they age, these paintings resist stasis, reflecting the impermanent nature of experience as they gradually shift in color and fade.