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i’ll save you a seat.

What does it mean to sit with what feels unbearable? Through paintings, video, and installation, “from Beneath you it Devours” lingers in the tension between fear and bravery, grief and love, violence and care, survival and undoing. This exhibition asks viewers to sit with the demons in the basement, to see what burns and what endures, and to consider what can only be learned from what haunts us.

The desire to fight is as much in my blood as is the desire to forgive. Can I both fight and sit with my monsters? I must learn to understand them in order to contain them. Taking responsibility for my demons means not banishing them but taking agency in how I live with them. My grandmother’s basement taught me this before I had words for it. I remember how ominous a basement felt; like it took intentional bravery to go down there. But hers, while dark and decorated with paintings of matadors, was also a playroom where I watched TV. These graceful but somewhat violent paintings in this dark space were evidence that my grandmother, a colorful person adorned in flowers and butterflies, was also a fighter. I found solitude, imagination, and comfort in a place that naturally felt somewhat scary. It taught me that it is possible to feel afraid and safe at the same time.

If we do not want to be devoured by what is buried, we must go downstairs and come to terms with what haunts us.
FULL STATEMENT + SOURCES   ︎  in the studio: mixtape 
from Beneath you, it Devours, Install, ANN HALEY, The Front, 2025 from Beneath you, it Devours, Install, ANN HALEY, The Front, 2025 from Beneath you, it Devours, Install, ANN HALEY, The Front, 2025 from Beneath you, it Devours, Install, are you afraid of the dark? (detail), ANN HALEY, The Front, 2025 from Beneath you, it Devours, Install, are you afraid of the dark?, ANN HALEY, The Front, 2025 from Beneath you, it Devours, Install, are you afraid of the dark?, ANN HALEY, The Front, 2025 from Beneath you, it Devours, Install, scared safe, ANN HALEY, The Front, 2025 from Beneath you, it Devours, Install, scared safe, ANN HALEY, The Front, 2025 from Beneath you, it Devours, Install, scared safe (detail), ANN HALEY, The Front, 2025 from Beneath you, it Devours, Install, ANN HALEY, The Front, 2025 from Beneath you, it Devours, Install, RIP your heart out, ANN HALEY, The Front, 2025 from Beneath you, it Devours, Install, RIP your heart out (detail), ANN HALEY, The Front, 2025 from Beneath you, it Devours, Install, RIP your heart out, ANN HALEY, The Front, 2025 from Beneath you, it Devours, ANN HALEY, the basement [i’ll save you a seat], installation; couch, TV, books, movies, bankers lamp, coffee table, chewed nicorettes, bones, chair photographs by Ely Marshall, Elliott Stokes, Miriam, and Musk Rat, The Front, 2025 from Beneath you, it Devours, ANN HALEY, the basement [i’ll save you a seat], installation (detail incl. How To Tell When We Will Die by Johanna Hedva, vertebrae, nicorettes, incense, lighter, garnet), The Front, 2025 from Beneath you, it Devours, ANN HALEY, the basement [i’ll save you a seat], installation; detail: FAMILY chair photographs by Ely Marshall, Elliott Stokes, Miriam, and Musk Rat, The Front, 2025 from Beneath you, it Devours, ANN HALEY, the basement [i’ll save you a seat], installation; couch, TV, books, movies, bankers lamp, coffee table, chewed nicorettes, bones, chair photographs by Ely Marshall, Elliott Stokes, Miriam, and Musk Rat, The Front, 2025

Goodbye, Earl [Fights That Raised Me] in memory of Jaclyn Waites + Toiannie Odom
ANN HALEY
Trailer of 1:23:23 video, looped (I don’t own the rights to these films/tv shows)
2025

are you afraid of the dark?, ANN HALEY, 60 x 60 inches, oil and graphite on canvas, 2025 are you afraid of the dark? DETAIL, ANN HALEY, 60 x 60 inches, oil and graphite on canvas, 2025 scared safe, ANN HALEY, 36 x 48 inches, oil on canvas, 2025 scared safe DETAIL, ANN HALEY, 36 x 48 inches, oil on canvas, 2025 scared safe DETAIL, ANN HALEY, 36 x 48 inches, oil on canvas, 2025 RIP your heart out [have breakfast with the ghost in your house], ANN HALEY, 30 x 36 inches, oil and acrylic wash on canvas, 2025 RIP your heart out [have breakfast with the ghost in your house] DETAIL, ANN HALEY, 30 x 36 inches, oil and acrylic wash on canvas, 2025 RIP your heart out [have breakfast with the ghost in your house] DETAIL, ANN HALEY, 30 x 36 inches, oil and acrylic wash on canvas, 2025 RIP your heart out [have breakfast with the ghost in your house] DETAIL, ANN HALEY, 30 x 36 inches, oil and acrylic wash on canvas, 2025 my grandmother's basement, ANN HALEY, 40 x 30 inches, oil and graphite on canvas, 2024
FULL STATEMENT + SOURCES   ︎  in the studio: mixtape
exhibition documentation by Ann Haley, Riley Teahan, and Sara Nyquist.














© 2013-2026 Ann Haley.    ︎