Anna Gonzalez-Noguchi

Anna Gonzalez Noguchi is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice is deeply informed by her personal background and cross-cultural experiences. Born to a Spanish father and Japanese mother, and raised across multiple countries, Anna’s work reflects her exploration of identity, belonging, and cultural dissonance. Her artistic journey often focuses on her Japanese heritage, a connection she describes as both intimate and fractured due to physical distance, language barriers, and emotional complexity.

Central to her practice is an obsession with memory and the spaces, objects, and histories tied to her family. Through meticulous documentation, she reimagines and relocates objects from her grandparents’ lives—such as her grandfather’s orchids, carefully archived in diary entries and photographs, or pharmaceutical-branded household items from her grandparents’ medical profession. These artifacts are domesticated, rebranded, and personalized with the handwritten name のぐちかずこ (Noguchi Kazuko), creating poignant reflections on identity, memory, and loss, particularly as her grandmother faces dementia. Anna’s works explore the relationships we have with possessions and the ways they embed personal and collective histories. Her installations juxtapose traditional Japanese craft techniques with mass-produced, industrial aesthetics. This interplay highlights the tension between the handmade and the mechanical, the deeply personal and the detached. For example, she crafts industrially finished surfaces—often with a clinical, distilling quality—that serve as shelving systems to organize and spotlight handmade objects and photographs.

Anna is fascinated by the functionality of mass production and the emotional weight everyday objects carry. Her practice also incorporates traditional Japanese crafts, such as wooden Kokeshi dolls and architectural elements, which she contrasts with the utilitarian aesthetic of modern production. This fusion creates a dialogue between craftsmanship, memory, and the way objects narrate our lives.

Her work is an ongoing exploration, a process of unpicking and understanding connections. From a botanical drawing paired with a self-reflective note on death to a handwritten karaoke playlist of 94 Japanese folk songs, Anna’s projects invite viewers to contemplate their own relationships to possessions, memory, and identity. Her practice is a thoughtful examination of how we live, work, and express ourselves, as well as how personal narratives intersect with universal experiences.