Annika Earley (she/they) makes intimate works on paper about her alter-ego/fairy godmother/personal demon named Batshit. Her work considers the demands and joys of motherhood, sensuality and sexuality, gender, and pre-teen nostalgia. She often uses German fairy and folk tales and Spice Girls lyrics as reference points in her work.
Earley grew up in rural Switzerland but moved to mid-coast Maine in 2000. When she was very young, she used to play in the woods; there she found a small, shingled hut with tiny windows and a locked door. Raised on Grimm stories, Earley was absolutely certain that this must be a witch’s house and proceeded to avoid it at all costs as she had no interest in being baked into a pie. At age twenty, she returned to Switzerland for the first time after ten years and discovered that this hut was not a witch’s house but, in fact, a storage shed belonging to the forestry department of her village. This experience continues to have a profound impact on her work.
Earley holds an MFA from Maine College of Art and an M.Phil from College of the Atlantic. She has been a resident at the Ellis-Beauregard Foundation in Rockland, ME, Hewnoaks Artist Colony in Lovell, ME, Monson Arts in Monson, ME, Pace House Residency in Stonington, ME, and the Walkaway House in North Adams, MA. She has been supported by the St. Botolph Foundation in Boston, MA, the New York Foundation for the Arts, The Albert K, Murray Fund, and SPACE Gallery’s American Rescue Plan Grant. Earley’s work is in the collections of the University of Southern Maine and the College of the Atlantic and has been most recently exhibited at Field Projects in New York, NY and Moss Galleries in Falmouth, ME. She currently lives in Belfast, ME.