Ann Gønge Power is a Danish artist currently resident in Australia. Ann has been an accomplished and successful artist for fifteen years working mainly with jewellery, fibre and bead works. Her collections over the past ten years specialize in bead work as a tangible expression of her Scandinavian roots and the firm direction of her future works.
As Ann puts it "Next to clothing, Beads are one of the oldest forms of human adornment and artistic expression. It's hard wired genetically into all of us to indulge in this, particularly women. It's normal for both men and women to love bead artwork and want to acquire it and admire it. We should understand that more as being healthy and part of our genetic make up."

"My particular current style was passed down to me from a very long line of Danish women passing the skill down generation to generation. I am fortunate to have a mentor and very dear friend (Lis Olsen) from such a line who graciously included me in her line and passed the feeling for the artwork and beadwork skills on to me."

Ann has collected threads, findings, beads and stones for more than twenty years, and with this very extensive resource Ann can experiment and develop innovations that add a new life to her cultures traditional art form and importantly keep it both relevant and alive for future generations. As Ann"s artworks are never repeated by her they become unique. Some traditional design components are reused but never in the same bead, stone or colour combinations.

The term "frustrating obsessive perfectionist" has occasionally been used to describe Ann, who has been known to destroy weeks of work and start again, just because the piece did not feel right. Her own view is not so much that, as this.

"My artwork should, with care, last generations, "the feel" and "look" of it has to be something that will make the owner, or admirer feel warm and safe but stimulated when they are using it, displaying it, feeling it or admiring it. It is like a buzz or wave that flows gently through you that makes you feel good.
If I can create that "aesthetic" in the piece when I am delicately building it, chances are that it will stay in the body of the work for future generations to enjoy and feel good around.
It's like fine wine, there are lots of good wines made, but some exceptional vintners use their skill to put a warm aesthetic feeling into their wines. They stimulate you and make you feel good when you have them years down the track. More importantly you get the same feeling whether you drink the wine or not, because the feeling is still there. That's why some vintners command great value, and people are prepared to pay such high prices for their works. It's not the taste or the alcoholic potency, its knowing that the feeling is there. It's a subtley tangible thing.

If I do not feel that I've maintained that aesthetic in one of my pieces for any reason, I destroy it and start again. It is not that I am a perfectionist although I recognize some see me that way. It's my commitment to the future.
Some people don't want to or cannot value, understand or feel that aesthetic appreciation and I would prefer that they did not acquire one of my pieces, leave it for someone who can. Creativity is pointless otherwise.
It is nice to have ones work valued, each piece takes a huge amount of time, effort and materials to create, trial and finally build. It would be nice to have that valued."

2008 sees the appearance of Ann on the internet exhibiting her works more broadly in a gallery that will develop as a vehicle for her own works and hopefully a link to galleries and other artists.
And in this to encourage and recognize the value of traditional bead working techniques, the complexity of the designs, application, materials and time required to create quality pieces that will outlast many generations to come taking some of the aesthetics of now for the future in a tangible appreciating value form.