Artist Statement
Annas practice looks at the modern perception of the body in western society and how that is being shaped by the rapidly advancing digital age that we are living in. She explores the internal and external body through a digital lens, and through organic and material approaches; flesh, body and skin. In doing so, Anna addresses the tensions between natural and synthetic.
Anna works directly with the body using it as a medium. She works with her own body in particular as she has constant access to it. The occupation of the body is universal; they are what put us in direct contact with the world and that feed our perceptions through the senses. We all experience the world through our own unique bodies. Anna alludes to the experience of having and living in a body, evoking the senses through the consideration of material and a focus on touch. She uses abstraction and fragmentation to create a feeling of familiarity without being overly visually descriptive.
The process behind her work often begins with imprinting her body, a technique that recurs throughout history. For instance, negative hand stencils found in caves which involves chewing up pigments such as ochre and spitting them around the hand in contact with a rock wall. This process feels intimate; it creates a tangible mark that highlights a material and physical connection to its origin. The desire to leave a trace is fundamental to the human condition - the wish to preserve a moment.
Anna is interested in this relationship between touch and time; how it connects us to the past in the form of traces and remains. Using latex and other organic transitory materials such as ochre, ash, charcoal and dust, she creates work that is subject to time, decay and transformation. This reflects the impermanent nature of our physical bodies. In contrast, the work that involves digital processes are sterile and preserved representations.
Consequently, Anna investigates the role tangibility plays in human experience and its affect on intimacy, reflecting on how we have lost touch with ourselves and with nature, both physically and metaphorically. Through her work, Anna hopes to reawaken this connection.