Anne Oshman
“Get
close, then get closer,”
are the words that Anne
Oshman uses to describe her inspiration and approach to the creation of the
large scale mosaics she has been creating for the last few years. She is fully
absorbed in the details.
Oshman began her artistic career many years ago creating functional art pieces
for sale through furniture retailers, boutiques, and galleries. A life-long
gardener she has always been creative. Her talent for decoration and her love of
gardening, may well have come together leading to her discovery of the fine art
of mosaic. The qualities that makes her uniquely suited for the art of
mosaic-making are her delight in capturing details that would otherwise go
unnoticed, a gardener’s eye for seeing the whole in the component parts, as well
as a keen understanding of her audience based on her sales as a decorative
artist. But it was in the fortuitous discovery of a NY Studio run by European
trained mosaicists, that led Oshman to discover her passion, the art of mosaic.
Her compositions consist primarily of cropped figures with a focus on the
positions of the figures and their surroundings. These mosaics are portraits of
a sort and though the figures are anonymous, they express a great deal about the
relationships of the people within the mosaic as well as reveal the artist’s
unique point of view. Oshman painstakingly chooses these images from the vast
array of images that barrage people in contemporary life. Some come from her own
photographs, others are assimilated from foreign sources such as newspaper or
magazine advertisements
Although mosaic is often used as a formal decorative attribute of interior and
exterior architecture, it also undoubtedly documents the culture that produced
it. These mosaics are not merely accessories; each is a piece of art. Oshman’s
mosaics explore 21st century preoccupations such as bikini bottoms,
mother-daughter relationships, a man’s fascination with his car, as well as
people just “hanging out.” Her use of an ancient medium does not constrain her
view of contemporary life.
Oshman is A member of SAMA (Society of American Mosaic Artists). She has studied mosaic arts at the Unicorn Mosaic Studio in New York City as well as having a MA from Hunter College and a BS in Elementary Education from NYU.
