About Anya Gallaccio

Anya Gallaccio (b. 1963, Scotland) attended Kingston Polytechnic and Goldsmiths’ College at the University of London. Gallaccio creates site-specific installations, often using organic materials as her medium. Past projects have included arranging a ton of oranges on a floor, placing a thirty-two ton block of ice in a boiler room, and painting a wall with chocolate. The nature of these materials results in natural processes of transformation and decay, often with unpredictable results. Gallaccio has stated, “I see my works as being a performance and collaboration . . . There is unpredictability in the materials and collaborations I get involved in. Making a piece of work becomes about chance – not just imposing will on something, but acknowledging its inherent qualities.”

Anya Gallaccio‘s work is remarkable for its conflation of inclusiveness and rigour, for engaging light touch which belies its profundity. Through the use of a wide range of materials, often in large quantities, such as chocolate, whistling kettles, ice, sugar, candles, salt, Polaroid photographs and lead, she conveys her preoccupation with the nature of change through the passage of time, the balance in life struck between growth and decay.

Gallaccio has exhibited extensively, including solo exhibitions at the Tate Britain, London (2003) and at the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham, England (2003). Recent exhibitions include solo shows at Camden Art Centre, London (2008); The Eastshire Museum, Scotland (2010); Annet Gelink Gallery in Amsterdam, The Netherlands (2011). Gallaccio’s work is featured in numerous public and private collections such as the Tate Gallery, London; the Victoria & Albert Museum, London; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; and South Gallery, London. Anya Gallaccio lives and works in San Diego.