Binghamton-based artist and poet Anna Warfield creates text-based fiber sculptures in order to consider identity and how we communicate through words both spoken and unspoken. Her work revolves around plush letterforms spelling out words and phrases that are often as prickly as her materials are soft and yielding. Warfield delights in the slippage between words and their meanings, leaving her viewers to read between the lines. Sculptures that appear at first glance to be about comfort reveal, upon closer examination, layers that address gender roles, queer identity, and the eternally fraught nature of human communication.
Relearning Play is built around the elements of Warfield’s work that speak to language learning during childhood—a time when books and games are inextricable from language itself. For many, the challenges of communicating as an adult strip away the fun and playful elements of language, leaving anxiety and uncertainty in their wake. Warfield’s sculptures remove the high stakes and risk from communication, instead allowing viewers to reconnect with the joy that comes from playing with words.
Anna Warfield: Relearning Play is part of the Everson CNY Artist Initiative, an exhibition program that celebrates the multi-faceted talents of regional artists. The CNY Artist Initiative is made possible with support from Terry and Bill Delavan.
The Everson is supported by the Dorothy and Marshall M. Reisman Foundation; the General Operating Support program, a regrant program of the County of Onondaga with the support of County Executive, J. Ryan McMahon II, and the Onondaga County Legislature, administered by CNY Arts; and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
About the Artist:
Anna Warfield (she/they, b. 1995) is visual artist and poet based in Binghamton, New York. Her predominantly text-based fiber sculptures consider the body, unlearning, and identity. Their recent solo exhibitions include UNDOINGS at SUNY Oneonta (2024) and Placid Thoughts from Inside Her Eyelids at the Roberson Museum (2023-2024). In recent years, Warfield has exhibited with MAG Rochester, Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Schweinfurth Art Center, Ithaca Print Shop, Site:Brooklyn Gallery, and the Arts Council of the Southern Finger Lakes. Warfield is the 2025 Antigravity artist at the Rockwell Museum, and has a forthcoming artist residency with the Corning Museum of Glass. Recent awards include a NYSCA Individual Artist grant, a Saltonstall Residency and Fellowship, a Community Foundation for South Central New York Women’s Fund grant, and an Arts in the Community Individual Artist Commission. Warfield holds a B.F.A. and B.S. in Communication both from Cornell University where her 2018 thesis received the Charles Baskerville Painting Award.
