Anya Kielar

Artist Statement

I like to make faces that come out of nowhere. They will sometimes be sad and angry, or jolly and confused. The charismatic range of expressions that we experience as life passes on this indefinable pattern that started centuries ago can end, will continue, and were gone. Faces and figures in my work come through the means of various genres and meaning. I try to give them real character and emotion. The fact that they are inanimate in the beginning and made of sticks, shoes, and cardboard only accentuates the magical nature of giving life to ordinarily diffused objects. This passage of meaning in to things is one way we leave traces of our own existence. I am most drawn to art where you can clearly see and sense the person behind it. I appreciate when identity isn’t overly concealed or guarded behind aesthetics. Art can be a way to reveal vulnerabilities and confront aspects of yourself that you’re highly conscious of. In particular I’m aware of my body, that it’s an ever-changing vessel. I choose to portray the dramas that play out in my head when thinking when thinking about my skin turning different colors or textures and my bones bending. I am also very conscious of the expectations placed on women in our society. Rather than feeling suppressed or restricted by this role, I choose to make matters of beauty and sexuality awkward and humorous. This is not to say I don’t believe in the relevance of beauty, it’s more that I embrace a divergent ideas of what constitutes it. I often incorporate ideas from stage design and theatricality because I want the pieces to engage with the viewer on a visceral level. In the case of my san paintings I exaggerate the scale of the facial features to transform the entire room into an active stage. The wall itself becomes a skin that these fragments float upon. As objects they’re comprised with all sorts of things like egg cartons, rope, and placemats that are typically functional. Their recognizable traits are concealed in the process of entombing them in colored sand, and they become more like archaeological relics that are part of an eccentrically hewn alphabet. What they spell out is interchangeable and depends on how the viewer projects their own identity complex.