Anne Hayden Stevens: The Philosopher Walks

The Evanston Art Center (EAC) is proud to present a new exhibition, The Philosopher Walks, featuring works by Anne Hayden Stevens.

Artist Anne Hayden Stevens was selected for a juror’s award and solo exhibition at the Art Center by juror Kate Pollasch in the 2021 Evanston + Vicinity Biennial. This exhibition, The Philosopher Walks, includes expansive oil paintings and sculpture in which tiny figures make their way through a mountainous world. Stevens’ textured, high chroma landscapes employ simple forms of trees, bodies, refuges, and water to create space for travelers through the paintings. Stevens, a painter and printmaker, has made large scale installations in Evanston in two pop-up exhibitions curated by Lisa Degliantoni and EvanstonMade, and curates outdoor installations and screenings at the Evanston Art Center as Side/Lot with artist Mat Rappaport. Stevens participated in the Center Program and Bridge at the Hyde Park Art Center, and the Field/Work program at the Chicago Artists Coalition.

A series of nine paintings on paper, Accountability, will be on display in the exhibition. These paintings were made in response to assignments given to a group of artists, centered around a class of incarcerated artists, by multidisciplinary artist Damon Locks, the director of the Black Monument Ensemble. Locks works as a teaching artist for the Prison+Neighborhood Arts Project, or PNAP, with incarcerated artists at Stateville Prison.

Locks’ assignments are speculative and forward-looking. He asks the artists to have a conversation with themselves about Accountability, and to ponder a Lost Place, and to make a story about a Transformation. The assignments urge us to envision a liberated world while living in the real world.

The Philosopher Walks will be on display in the Evanston Art Center's Second Floor Gallery from June 17 – July 23, 2023. Stevens will be present in the galleries for an Exhibition Preview on June 16, 2023, from 3-5pm. The opening reception will take place on Sunday, June 25th, from 1-4pm, and there will be a closing reception on Sunday, July 23rd from 1-4pm with an artist’s Gallery Talk at 2pm. The exhibition and accompanying events are free and open to the public.