Abra Ancliffe

Abra Ancliffe engages printmaking and drawing to explore the fixity & frailty of language alongside how knowledge is written, printed, compiled, read, stored, ordered, dispersed and accessed. The history, process and physicality of printing, publishing and book-making become conflated with the acts of reading, writing, astronomy, geology, collecting and archiving. In 2009, she started the Personal Libraries Library, a specially-curated lending library now in Chelsea, Vermont that recreates & reconsiders the personal libraries of notable artists, scientists, writers & thinkers. Ancliffe received her BA in English Literature from Lewis & Clark College, her BFA in Printmaking from Pacific Northwest College of Art and her MFA in Printmaking from Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia. Ancliffe is the former BFA Printmaking Department Head and Associate Professor of Printmaking at PNCA, in Portland, Oregon.