About

@pewlter

Anna Lee is an artist and educator based in North Carolina. She was a 2024 NC Emerging Artist in Residence at Artspace and an executive producer for the Transfiguration International Film Festival.

Lee is the founder and curator of Scatterbrain Screenings, a series of film screenings and creative workshops solely featuring NC animators.

She received her BA in Art + Design at NC State University and is currently pursuing an MFA in Experimental and Documentary Arts at Duke University (class of ‘27).

Artist Statement

I am a multimedia animator, illustrator, and musician bridging analog and digital media to articulate the cognitive dissonance of corporeal existence in the age of the internet. My work juxtaposes handmade elements, such as traditional animation and textiles, with digital elements, such as video and projection. It’s hard to say whether the physical elements will outlive the digital ones, or whether our bodies or our virtual personas have more agency in modern society, but I believe it is possible to embrace both.

My filmmaking journey began in the realm of fiction, but the longer I create, the more archival my work has become. As my work is becoming less guided by genre or medium and more guided by my instincts, the world is becoming less guided by the voices of individuals and more guided by arbitrary and often harmful categorization. I am interested in documenting this moment in history where cameras have become eyes for the collective brain we know as the internet. I utilize both the analog and the digital in my work because our bodies and minds are often regarded as disposable hardwares and exploitable softwares, when in reality they are inextricable parts of a whole.

When the multimedia facets of my work are in harmony or at odds, it is an invitation for the viewer to reckon with the blurring line between our abstract, virtual identities and our tangible, animalistic selves. During this age in which our perception of reality is so easily fragmented, I find it increasingly valuable to position emotional honesty as the crux of my practice, and to champion art as an opportunity to practice empathy and authentic human connection.