About the Artist
Artist Bio
Anna Stoysich is a multidisciplinary artist based in the Loess Hills along the Nebraska–Iowa border in Malvern, Iowa. Born and raised in Omaha, Anna received her BFA with honors from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Her work celebrates the wildlife and wilderness of the Tallgrass Prairie, in which she works to show the region’s abundant biodiversity. Curiosity leads and being present in the environment fuels her. She is drawn to expressing playfulness through a whimsical aesthetic.
Anna works across painting, drawing, murals, and ceramics, often blending these approaches to explore land‑based storytelling. Her art career includes significant milestones such as an artist residency at the Archie Bray Foundation, a nationally recognized center for ceramic excellence, and being juried into the first Taiwan Ceramics Biennial, an international exhibition highlighting innovative ceramic practices. Her public‑facing community engaged projects include The Celebration of the Wetlands, a collaborative tile installation, and multisensory gatherings like The HeARTwood Dinner, a farm‑to‑table experience shaped by handmade pottery, which brought together artists, poets, chefs, and musicians.
Encouraging others to connect with nature and culture through the arts, Anna offers murals, custom artwork, commissions, tile installations, workshops, private classes, and facilitation of community‑engaged art projects.
Artist Statement
As a multidisciplinary place-based artist, I work in painting, drawing, murals, ceramics, and collaborative projects to create illustrated objects rooted in the ecology and stories of the Tallgrass Prairie. Growing up in Nebraska, I was surrounded by landscapes dominated by corn and soybeans. Standing on the ridges of the Loess Hills, I often found myself imagining what existed before them. Long before I learned that Tallgrass Prairie once covered much of the region, I sensed there was another story beneath the landscape around me.
Learning that only fragments of this ancient ecosystem remain transformed the way I understood home. The landscape is telling one story now, but there are older stories underneath it that have become difficult to see. Remnant prairies act as living archives, carrying stories from an ecosystem that evolved over thousands of years and was nearly erased within just a few generations. Through my work, I seek to restore these absent narratives and imagine what becomes possible when they are remembered.
Inspired by prairie remnants, I create whimsical narratives featuring native plants and animals as characters. These imagined worlds draw from observation, ecology, and wonder, envisioning landscapes shaped by biodiversity, abundance, restoration, and renewed relationships between species.
I am drawn to clay for its connection to the earth and its transformation through fire. Its surface becomes a place to draw, carve, and tell stories. Through playful visual experiences, I invite viewers to reconnect with the more-than-human world and imagine more reciprocal futures.
The Artist’s Process
Read more about Anna’s processes as she creates one-of-a-kind ceramic pieces and paintings.
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