California Least Tern Eggs

By Anna Stump

Artist’s statement:

I have painted birds periodically throughout my life, mainly as a symbol for fragility, both personal and political. “California Least Tern Eggs,” from my Terrariums series, is mixed media on paper. Terrariums began as a series depicting Passenger Pigeons, which are extinct. I’ve expanded the subject to include endangered birds, their eggs, and other natural elements from the San Diego-Tijuana border, where I live.

The forced-perspective boxes of the series suggest architecture, coffins, and permeable borders, in which the natural elements are both trapped and preserved. I want to both hide, through camouflaged backgrounds, and decorate with flashy metallics. Formal qualities of abstraction, gridding, and figure/ground flipping, combined with political subjects dressed with decorative tropes, are important elements of all my work, which includes nudes, narrative interiors and portraiture.

California least terns are endangered and, at one point, only 600 nesting pairs remained. They nest on the sand where beach goers and the military, which has bases on the coast, can crush the eggs.

Anna Stump is an artist and arts educator living in San Diego. She earned her Bachelor’s degree at Occidental College and her Master of Fine Arts at San Diego State University. She was a Senior Fulbright Scholar to the Fine Arts Department at Anadolu University in Eskisehir, Turkey in 2006-2007. She teaches studio and art history courses at San Diego City College and Grossmont College. She also teaches drawing and painting at Donovan State Correctional Facility. Her work can be viewed here.

Anna’s New York Times reviewed blog of three years, Kloe Among the Turks, examines the art scene in Southern California and Turkey, and issues of arts education. In 2009, she curated an exhibition of 130 artists from Southern California and Turkey, presented in San Diego, Los Angeles, Istanbul and Ankara.

Anna is the founder of the San Diego Feminist Image Group. She is a member of Mid-Air Trio, an improvisational group that combines painting, dance and soundscapes in live performances. She is one-half of the painting team Hill&Stump. The artist is represented by MLA Gallery in Los Angeles, Sanatyapim Gallery in Ankara, Turkey, and Sparks Gallery and Sergott Contemporary Art Alliance in San Diego. She was recently profiled in the Huffington Post by Mat Gleason for her new work, “Sexy Jesus.”