Annalise has fieldwork experience from a variety of art-based, advocacy, and clinical internship sites. In 2019, she was an Art Therapy Counseling practicum student at ArtWorks Chicago co-participating in weekly community-based art groups. In 2020, Annalise was an Art Therapy Counseling Intern at Jesse Brown VA Medical Center providing group art therapy to Veterans in intensive outpatient and inpatient psychiatric settings, as well as facilitating outpatient open art studio. In 2021, Annalise is an Art Therapy & Trauma Therapy Intern at Resilience Chicago providing individual trauma therapy and facilitating support groups for survivors of sexual violence.
Annalise is a visual artist working in painting, ceramics, fibers, and mixed media to explore expressive modalities of storytelling. She creates text-based artwork, vessels, and assemblages that explore themes of memory, lived experience, disclosure, gaze, protection, caretaking, holding, and containment.
The collaborative art project “Pieces of Y(our) Story” intends to bring awareness to the experience of sexual assault survivors by showcasing y(our) words and statements using visual art pieces. An anonymous online response form was utilized to collect input from survivors of sexual violence and the responses were used to create text-based mixed media artworks. These pieces can be embraced by larger communities where survivors may lean on other people for processing and collective acknowledgement. The title “Y(our)” is intended to represent individual and collective storytelling, combining both you and our. This project will allow viewers of the exhibited artworks to live with the survivor’s words for a short while and honor their resilience. “Pieces of Y(our) Story” created pathways to formal and informal support which resulted in a platform for survivors to share their survival story and request how they would like to be supported by their community. The current project has implications for future expanded endeavors, with the potential to be a continued art series to parallel the series of survivals that victims of sexual violence overcome.
Installation in SAIC Galleries To follow the project, read the full contextual essay, or submit your own response to the series, please visit the Pieces of Y(our) Story website.
All We Ask, 2021 Installation in SAIC Galleries
From left to right: Irony, 2021“Just Let It Happen”, 2021 Never Linear, 2020 Y(OUR) COMMUNITY Participants responded to the question: How would you like your community to support you as a survivor?
From left to right: Spotlight, 2021 Time And Place, 2021 Expectations, 2021 Y(OUR) REPRESENTATION Survivors got the chance to have a voice in how they were represented in the artworks by sharing artistic elements that they associate with their survival story. This included whichever colors, marks, or textures came to mind when they brought their attention to the various narratives they shared.
From left to right: An Innocence Is Robbed From You, 2020 I Hate The Word Angel Now, 2021 It Was Such A Cold Night, 2021 Home Invasion, 2021 Y(OUR) STORY Survivors were encouraged to think of a piece of their story that they felt ready to share. These are a few responses that they chose to contribute.