Anna Spencer
Anna Spencer (@annaspencer1992) is an emerging artist currently living in the Pilbara of Western Australia. She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and Bachelor of Arts at UNSW and the College of Fine Arts (now UNSW Art and Design) in 2015. Majoring in textiles, her current practice of painting and drawing is heavily influenced by her studies and travels, through which she has developed a keen eye for textures and patterns in her surroundings. Since graduating Anna has explored artistic endeavours in various landscapes across Latin America, Canada and the desert of Australia.
Spencer is currently working in gouache on paper magnifying the West Australian landscape. She is particularly drawn to encapsulating the subtleties, details and diversity of the landscape largely with a focus on the Pilbara. Place and her relation to it, is endemic in her work.
In order to understand and truly remember a place she has visited she needs to observe it and connect to it through painting. Through painting she is able to draw attention to lost details in the vast landscape in which she finds herself living.
Who are you?
I am a curious, observant, adventurous artist who has found herself living in the vast desert of the Pilbara.
Tell us a bit about your work. My paintings are a collection of observations of the Western Australian landscape, encapsulating all the intricate magic that can be found in its details. My work is built up of layers of gouache, watercolour and other marks to collect on paper all the delightful textures my eyes are drawn to.
How long have you identified as being an artist? 10 years
How does where you live affect your artworks? My artwork is greatly affected and influenced by where I am living or where I have travelled. I have found myself living and traveling through many different landscapes in many different regions of the world, artmaking has become a sort of time capsule or journal of where I have lived.
Best advice for new artists? Observe your surroundings, explore different mediums
What motivates you to create? Time spent in the bush.
Who or what are your biggest influences artistically? Big old mother nature.
Where do you find inspiration? In colours, textures, patterns of the everyday and unexpected surroundings.
When are you at your most creative? On a bushwalk. On a lazy, cosy weekend at home.
How has your style changed over time? My practice has become magnified. Rather than develop larger landscapes I have become more focused on sections of the landscape.
What do you listen to whilst you create? Kevin Morby, Marlon Williams, Tinariwen, Darkside.