Anastazie Anderson

Anastazie Anderson (b. 1995) is a Czech-British painter, currently living and working in London. She completed a BA in Fine Art at Falmouth University before pursuing a Masters in Painting at the Royal College of Art.

A picture of the artist surrounded by their large paintings.

I paint insignificant things on big canvases. I’m in love with colour. I’m in love with photos, trinkets, mementos, pets. I’m in love with my childhood.

I see my work as part of a new Pop Art, one that acknowledges that today some of our most intimate, authentic experiences are as mass-produced as cans of Coke.

Pink Coat – Oil on linen, 190 x 220 cm, 2023

Skiing – Oil on linen, 145 x 145 cm, 2022

Dad – Oil on linen, 160 x 170 cm, 2023

Fausty – Oil on linen, 160 x 120 cm, 2023

When people talk about something being genuine or authentic, they mean that something is being true to itself. People want to be authentic and act in a way which is true to themselves. Cans of coke are always true to themselves. They are the same everywhere in every situation. People want to be cans of coke.

House 1 – 230 x 170 and 130 x 170 (diptych), oil on linen, 2023

House 2 – 230 x 170 and 130 x 170 (diptych), oil on linen, 2023

House 3 – 230 x 170 and 110 x 170 (diptych), oil on linen, 2023

Sanny

She completes a painting of her childhood Siamese, Sanny. The breed standard of the modern Siamese calls for an elongated, tubular, and muscular body and a triangular head, a triangle that forms from the tip of the nose to each tip of the ear. Her decision to paint her Siamese is somewhat inexplicable. She has a few interpretations of why she has so far completed six paintings of this subject.

One interpretation would be that Sanny is a symbol of her childhood. To paint her childhood, she must paint Sanny. They are one and the same thing. Another interpretation runs that to explore the line between the everyday and the profound, it is necessary to put an aspect of the everyday into the borders of a frame — making Sanny a subject provides a new emphasis. A third interpretation, and maybe the simplest, runs that her love for her childhood animal, which has recently passed away, now must find a new expression, in this case in paint, in the activity of artmaking.

But there remains the inexplicable image of Sanny, the elongated, tubular, and muscular body, and the triangular head. The interpretations try to explain the inexplicable. As the impulse comes out of a piece of truth, it must in turn end in the inexplicable.