Antoinette (Annie) Legnini

Artist Statement:

Assemblage asks you to deeply see.  Ordinary objects looked past in daily life suddenly become potential studio materials, like shopping bags, rubber bands, bottle caps, coffee beans, newspapers, and Metrocards.  I cut, glue, splice, tear, align, and braid these objects, collaging them with traditional mediums like paint and pencil on paper.  Through these materials, I create portraits of people and places I call home.  The collaged object becomes indistinguishable from the painted trompe l'oeil, bringing disparate elements together into a spectacular "one".  These common objects are a kind of “connective tissue”: recognizable, mundane, ubiquitous integrations from the fabric of our lives.  They become meditations of potential transformation and careful attention, what Abigail Deville calls an “artifact” of a life lived.  They are part of our daily rituals, representing our interwoven lives and relationships.  These parts and portraits reveal the collective home that has shaped me (us).  Suddenly, nothing is disparate.

Short bio:

Antoinette “Annie" Legnini (b. 1994, The Bronx) is a painter and draftsperson working with mixed media, collage, assemblage, and installation. She received a B.A. from Fordham University in Visual Arts and Women’s Studies in 2016 and an M.F.A. in Painting at the New York Academy of Art in 2022. Legnini has participated in residencies at the BX Arts Factory, Otis College of Art and Design, and Con Artist Collective. She was the recipient of the 2022-2023 Chubb Fellowship at the New York Academy of Art. Legnini is best known for her ongoing collaborative community art project called “Bronx Faces” - a series that pairs the stories and experiences of Bronxites with a mixed media portrait. She is currently teaching at the Fashion Institute of Technology and also taught at the New York Academy of Art, the Hudson River Museum, and Casita Maria Center for Arts & Education.

Long bio:

Antoinette “Annie" Legnini (b. 1994, The Bronx) is a painter, draftsperson, and teacher working with mixed media, collage, assemblage, and installation. She received a B.A. from Fordham University in Visual Arts and Women’s Studies in 2016 and an M.F.A. in Painting at the New York Academy of Art in 2022.  

Annie is best known for her ongoing collaborative community art project called “Bronx Faces” (2016-present): a series that pairs the stories and experiences of Bronxites with a mixed media portrait.  She created this series to learn more about her home from voices across the borough and to dispel negative media narratives of the borough that lack historical context.  This collaborative work with others at the communal level through art has impacted Annie greatly and is the kind of work she is most interested in making. 

Since 2021, Annie has been creating large-scale works of people from her Bronx and NYC communities.  These works immerse the viewer in the sitter’s world and work with mixed media and found objects: urging the viewer to reconsider the people, space, and resources around us in our daily lives.  Annie is also making “footprint portraits” of people who visit her studio space: thinking about the people who share space with us and how we make, work, and build ‘place’ with one another.

Annie has participated in residencies at the BX Arts Factory, Otis College of Art and Design, and Con Artist Collective.  She has taught at Casita Maria Center for Arts & Education, Spark NYC, New York Academy of Art, Bronx Council on the Arts, and the Hudson River Museum. Legnini was also a 2022-2023 Chubb Fellow at the New York Academy of Art.  

Throughout these experiences, Annie discovered her love for teaching.  While she identifies as a perpetual student, Annie has developed her pedagogical journey through teaching all ages and skill levels through a student-centered approach. She follows bell hooks’ wisdom in Teaching to Transgress in making the classroom an exciting learning space, breaking down student/teacher hierarchies, thinking critically and thoughtfully about concepts (and their practice), and caring for the overall intellectual and spiritual wellness of each mind in the classroom and beyond. hooks’ work has impacted Annie both personally and professionally as she continues to shape her teaching practice, especially in regard to teaching art history, which has historically erased marginalized groups from its dominant narrative and is slowly embracing a more critical, expansive view of the art world(s) - calling for continuous learning, researching, and diverse perspectives in art and beyond.