Anna Lewis
Degree: Sculpture and Environmental Art
University: Glasgow School of Art
Graduation Year: 2025
New Blood Art Commentary
Anna Lewis, recipient of the Glasgow School of Art’s Newbery Medal, the institution’s highest undergraduate honour, creates works that explore presence, absence and longing. In her degree show, a single gasp stretched across a year - Bated Breath, audio recording, 8760 hours. A gasp: involuntary, the body’s sudden intake at shock, wonder, grief. Stretched across time and transformed from fleeting rupture into continuous atmosphere.
Elsewhere, a silver screw securing only itself - entitled Fixed; a memory card offered as conceptual jewel-box - notating a trace - like how footprints mark the presence of a body already moved on…
In their restraint, these pieces act like ordinary things, that have become estranged: shadow, surface, sound, a phrase - that would normally work in relation (a screw holding timber, a gasp responding to shock, a memory card storing data) set free from their relational web. What remains is not the functional part but the archetypal act embodied in matter.
There is a quiet radicality here: an encounter with the psychic life of time itself.
Artist Statement
My practice is rooted in an ongoing exploration of presence, absence, and longing. Through sculpture, sound, and writing, I create moments of subtle tension - gaps or slippages that invite pause, encouraging folk to double-take and reflect on what it means to exist in the world. Autobiographical threads run quietly through the work, as I draw from memory to investigate how personal experience shapes these themes. At the heart of my practice is a commitment to the quiet precision of craft. Whether manifested as a physical object or a conceptual gesture, each piece is made with deliberate care, reflecting my belief in the value of thoughtful, well-honed work. Often small in scale and restrained in presence, my works emerge as quiet interventions, offering space for slow contemplation and emotional attunement.
Competitions, Prizes & Awards
(2025) Newbery Medal
(2025) RSA New Contemporaries 2026
(2025) Glasgow School of Art Essay Prize
(2025) New Blood Emerging Art Prize Nominee