Ana Maria Farina

Region: MFA Annual


I paint with a gun—a tufting gun—along with needles, hooks, and knots. Repurposing such a phallic signifier of violence, I conjure vibrant objects of comfort that inhabit a mystical pictorial space between abstraction and representation. Stabbing fabric with yarn, my psyche cracks open into fibers. It’s intuitive and it’s cathartic; it’s a pain in the ass but it’s satisfying. The resulting images are hysterical—in the truest sense of the word. Liberated from its slanderous connotations, hysteria is understood as a manifestation of the unconscious when it’s ferociously unbound. Ruptures are reborn as rugs, inviting the viewer into the home within.