Sometimes the ugliest packages may contain the most beautiful gifts…

My life has been a journey of “risk-on”. Having reached a glass ceiling as the most senior woman executive in a large financial company, I resigned my position due to “#metoo issues” I experienced at the firm. Undeterred, and despite being a single mom with two young children and no job, I took the risk and opened my own full service agency and focused on serving financial companies with a goal of creating a safe work environment for other women where we could all do excellent work, grow and thrive. It worked. That was in 1991. It was a bitter lemon that turned into a sweet lemonade.

Just before my second bout with cancer my mother, who was a painter, and in her last days on this earth, reminded me that I was a painter too and asked when I would return to it?  My answer was “Life got in the way”, but clearly I was ‘living to work’, rather than ‘working to live’. This second dance with cancer taught stubborn me, and I finally heeded the call of the Universe (and my Mom). With the love and support of family and friends, the power of positive thought, meditation, and both eastern and western medicine, I healed and was able to return to painting that which I feel and see around me in this beautiful and fragile world in which we live…another silver lining.

The work you see on this site represents my return to painting over the last several years. I am so grateful to be alive today and have tried to do my best to give back to the Universe all that I have received. To do so, I donate my work happily to environmental causes and to organizations focused on social justice and education. I have served on several Boards of non-profits where I too can offer my business expertise. I am proud of that and continue to do so.  

I dedicate this site with deep thanks to my brother Douglas Thompson.  Doug became blind as an adult. For three years as he struggled to learn how to live as a blind man, I became his eyes. It was a gift. He is the one who truly taught me how to “see”.  I am also so grateful to my husband Peter, my life-love and ‘Rock’ who encourages me and who designed and built my beautiful website.

I hope you will enjoy my world as I see it and will remember to try to keep balance in your own life. I lost mine for a while and paid for it… don’t let that happen to you.  Enjoy every day as they are all precious, even the difficult ones, and don’t forget to look around at so much beauty in the people, sky, water and nature that surround you.

I do both ‘plein air’ and studio painting, because one discipline feeds the other and makes ‘the capture’ of movement and fantastic colors more possible for me.

My paintings express how I see and feel the colors of the world around me. Whether the bold colors of the flora and ocean and sky in Hawaii, the moody, but often brilliant, coast of Maine, or the camel to green of Marin County, California, each place makes me want to paint to share the powerful energy their beauty inspires. In either oil or acrylic, en plein air or in the studio, I cherish my time in ‘the zone’ as a painter. My work is held in both private and institutional collections.   I also continue to do commission work.

I enjoy teaching workshops with young people who thirst to enter the world of art and learn the joys of freely expressing themselves in the various mediums of paint.

I hold a BFA from the University of Denver and have studied art at the University of Copenhagen and the Rhode Island School of Design. My work is shown in Hawaii, Maine and California.

Plantscapes, landscapes, seascapes, skyscapes and portraiture hold my interest.  In addition, I don’t shy away from using my work to bring a political message. I have been asked and continue to donate my paintings to non-profit Environmental Organizations, Museums and Schools for fund raising purposes and am honored not only by their requests but also pleased for the many funds my work has generated for their causes!

I Co-Curated the 3 year traveling exhibition, throughout New England:
The Equinox Petroglyph Project: Interpretations by Women and Children. I am most proud of the visibility and awareness this brought to the many talented artists across a variety of creative disciplines in Downeast Maine. A joint effort, the participating artists included both local residents as well as members of the Passamaquoddy Tribe.

Ann Gommers (Annie)

Galleries

Kai Ku Hale, Haleiwa, Hawaii

Living Local, Kailua, Hawaii

Island Treasures, Kailua, Hawaii

Waimea Valley, O’ahu, Hawaii

Permanent Collections

Equus Hotel, Waikiki, Hawaii

Faulkner Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts

Ka’ala Healing Arts Center, Waialua, Hawaii

Natural Resource Council of Maine, Augusta, Maine

Domestic Violence Action Center, Honolulu, Hawaii

University of Maine, Machias

Past Exhibitions

From Maine to Hawaii, One Woman Show, University of Maine, Machias 2015 

Wandering About Hawaii, One Woman Show, Capitol One Gallery, Waikiki, 2013        

 Haleiwa Arts Festival, Haleiwa, Hawaii- Juried, 2013, ’14, ’16

Island Light Through Lens and Brush, (Peter and Ann Gommers) (Two Person Show) Gallery on the Pali, 2010

Punahou Art Carnival , 2011,’12, ’13 and ’14, – Juried

Abbe Museum, Annual Gala, Bar Harbor, Maine, Featured Artist, 2011, ’12

The Equinox Petroglyph Project: Interpretations by Women and Children: (equinoxpetroglyphproject.com)
Four pieces of Ann’s work included in three-year traveling Exhibition throughout New England , including Maine State House (2007-2010) and several Museums , over 100 pieces of art, music and prose were created

Bar Harbor Chamber of Commerce Art Show– 2007, ’08, ’09, ’10 – Juried

Ceruleans Paint Narragansett, Governor’s Mansion, Providence , RI 2006

A Piece of My Mind, Deblois Gallery, Newport, Rhode Island, 2006, -Juried

Rhode Island School of Design, Professor’s Selection, 2005


Affiliations

2005 Founder of Ceruleans, Group of 10 artists from Massachusetts and
 Rhode Island who have had 35 shows over a 10 year period

Laguna Plein Air Painters Association

Plein Air Painters of the Bay of Fundy.

National League of Pen Women- Honolulu Branch, former President

Historic Hawaii Foundation, former Board member

Plein Air Painters of Hawaii

Maluhsihikon Foundation, former Board member

Co-Curator of the traveling exhibition, 2007-2010
The Equinox Petroglyph Project: Interpretations by Women and Children