Ann Le

"The Wickedest Woman"

Foreground image: Ann Lohman aka Madame Restell was one of the most vilified women of the 19th century, an abortion practitioner that dodged the law to become one of the wealthiest self-made women in the Gilded Age.

Background image: Bas relief of a massage abortion. The operator is a demon rather than a traditional birth attendant. The pregnant woman’s abdomen is darkened from being touched by pilgrims to Angkor Wat. The bas relief dates from about A.D. 1150.

Bio

Ann Le has always dealt with identity, culture, family history, and the duality of becoming Vietnamese-American in her work. Inspired by the cultural contexts in her life, she correlates the artificial with remembrances of generational trauma. Sentiment is vital in her works as she questions her personal experiences to construct imposing art.  She excavates her lineage by revisiting her family’s experiences by using personal and found images to reconstruct slippages in time and history. As layers of images are stacked upon one another, Le travels through time commenting on the idea of home, displacement, separation, and how we embrace and conquer loss. Tragic and Poetic composites are pieced together to unravel narratives which places her Vietnamese-American perspective into a contemporary landscape. Ann Le was born in San Diego, CA and currently lives and works in Los Angeles.