About
Annie Duncan (b. 1997, San Francisco, California) makes paintings and ceramic sculptures that explore femininity, symbolism, and art historical references. Leaning into her affinity for collecting, sorting, and obsessing over objects, her work finds humor, heartbreak, joy, and meaning in the jumbled world we inhabit. She received a BA from Vassar College in 2019 and an MFA from California College of the Arts in 2023.
email: anniegduncan@gmail.com
Instagram: annieduncan_
SELECTED GROUP SHOWS
2025 Sugar Breaks Silence, Dohing Art, Seoul, Korea (upcoming)
2025 SF Art Fair, Johansson Projects/AMP Public Art Comission, San Francisco, CA
2024 DD’s Hardware & More, Gallery 16, San Francisco, CA
2024 Oddkin, Hashimoto Contemporary, San Francisco, CA
2024 More Than Now, Moosey Gallery, London, England
2024 Potluck, Hashimoto Contemporary, Los Angeles, CA
2023 UNTITLED Art Fair w/ Johansson Projects, Miami, FL
2023 Hopelessly Devoted, Good Mother Gallery, Oakland, CA
2023 LUSH, Hashimoto Contemporary, New York, NY
2023 Plunge: Selected Artists, Chandran Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2023 San Francisco Art Fair @Fort Mason, Johansson Projects, San Francisco, CA
2023 MFA Thesis Exhibition, The Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, CA
2023 Venus pt. II, MRKT Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2022 Small Works, Soft Times Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2022 Body Language, California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA
2021 Annual Juried Exhibition, John Natsoulas Gallery, California Conference for the Advancement of Ceramic Arts, Davis, CA
2019 Senior Thesis Exhibition, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY
SOLO SHOWS
2024 Tremble like a Flower, Johansson Projects, Oakland, CA
2023 Looking Glass, St. Joseph’s Arts Society, San Francisco, CA
PUBLICATIONS
Variable West, “Northern California Picks from Sam Hiura.” Sam Hiura, May 29, 2024, web.
ARTnews, “The Best Booths at Untitled Art Miami Beach, From Potato Sculptures to Ominous Razors.” Maximilíano Durón, December 6, 2023, web.
Testudo, “Nothing Without Desire: Annie Duncan’s Objects Can’t Live Without You.” Katherine Jemima Hamilton, July 13, 2023, web.
Artsy, “Contemporary Artists are Reviving Vanitas, Reflecting on Death and Decadence.” Artsy Editorial, June 28, 2023, web.
RESIDENCIES
Anderson Ranch, Snowmass, CO, Fall 2024
Lighthouse Works, Fisher’s Island, NY, Summer 2024
In Cahoots Residency, Petaluma, CA, October 2020 and February 2021
EDUCATION
MFA, California College of the Arts, 2023
BA, Vassar College, 2019
AWARDS
Featured Artist, Partiful, September 2023
Featured Artist, Plunge Towels, November 2022
Painting Departmental Merit Scholarship, California College of the Arts, 2021-2023
Weitzel-Barber Art Travel Prize, Vassar College Art Department, 2019
Thesis Distinction, Vassar College, 2019
EXPERIENCE
Ceramics Instructor, The Putney School Summer Arts, VT, Summer 2023
Teaching Assistant, Ceramics 1, California College of the Arts, Fall 2022
Visiting Artist Lecturer, The Oxbow School, July 12, 2022
Teaching Assistant, Digital Tools, California College of the Arts, Spring 2022
Teaching Artist in Residence, The Oxbow School, Napa, CA, Spring-Summer 2021
Emerging Artist Fellow, Gallery Route One, Point Reyes Station, CA, 2020-2021
Printmaking Teacher, The Putney School Summer Arts, VT, Summer 2020-Winter 2021
Education Intern, The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, Spring 2020
Artist Statement
I make larger-than-life ceramic sculptures and paintings that explore the symbols of femininity and the talismanic power they carry. I consider everyday things associated with the femme/female body—from cheap commercial objects to art historical imagery—and use them to address contemporary subjects such as bodily autonomy, femininity, self-realization, and desire.
I hand-build my ceramic sculptures with slabs to create large-scale forms that are deliberately distorted. Once it is bisque-fired, I treat the clay surface as a canvas, using glaze to paint saturated, often illusionistic renderings of the form's interior and exterior, creating a false transparency. This trompe-l’oeil effect references traditional still life painting, the language of cartoons, and the aesthetics of digital consumer culture.
Most recently, I have been building giant ceramic flowers in bottles that serve as an allegory for the female body and psyche. These megaflora pieces reference flower symbolism and use enormous vessels as metaphors for how we nourish, contain, and delude ourselves in search of an instant remedy.
This work confronts the vulnerability of our innermost yearnings, which moment-to-moment can feel attainable or completely out of reach. My sculpture and paintings are monuments to the bittersweet nature of longing, striving, and failing—the ever-tipping scales of our expectations versus reality.
Ladder Image by Pauline Chatelan; Studio Image by Evan Soroka
For sales, contact Johansson Projects, info@johanssonprojects.com