Anya is a 22 y.o. mixed media artist based in Rhode Island. Her work generally revolves around depicting the tension-laden, gendered realities of life– reflecting her B.A in both Studio Art and Gender & Women's Studies from the University of Rhode Island. Deeply rooted in the desire to practice "Artivism" (art-activism), she won a 2023-24 grant from URI to showcase a collection of artworks (and year-long research findings) that tackled the many reasons women & AFAB individuals avoid healthcare. This was represented in her solo-exhibition "Betrayed Bodies: The Price of Care" through March 2025. A painting from this series, "N0 M0R3 TIM3" was then showcased in Art League RI's "Truth Unveiled" juried exhibition from October-December 2025. Anya was also the juror's choice winner of URI's 2022 student exhibition, and was selected to show her piece "Three Sisters in Pascoag" in Public PVD's juried show "POV" through Nov.-Dec. 2025. Anya is also the gallery coordinator of New England’s Candita Clayton Galleries.
Statement
I am an artist driven by capturing moments of charged stillness. Moments, scenes, and dialogue that make me pause, and think there could be something beyond my perception there. These moments interrupt the ordinary and cause speculation, unease, and recognition.
I am currently enraptured by nocturnes, monsters, and the surreal. There is a pleasure to be had from amassing forms from darkness and then revealing your perspective within it. I often deal with dissecting what it means to be a young woman in the 21st century, and what tensions feel like in that gendered reality. Objects and animals that don’t belong, shapes and bulbs that look like unfitting body-parts, the phallic and yonic, fearful, angry, passionate musings, and quiet, pearlescent otherworldly senses of knowing all inspire me greatly. Elements that don’t belong create a numinous energy and dark irony– of which are feelings I experience often in life.
I work primarily with mixed media to build layered surfaces and make images that feel closer to how I see life. I also often can’t stand working in just one medium. Acrylic and colored pencil is my preferred combination, as you can better represent subtle texture and color shifts. This helps me create the ghostly auras in my paintings and define sharper forms.
Feminist frameworks and research methodologies guide my grant-supported projects, particularly in works that engage with the female body and psyche under medical and social pressure. Using surrealist strategies, I explore experiences of discomfort, shame, rage, and isolation that are often privatized or rendered invisible. Rather than illustrating these conditions, I aim to create spaces of empathy that resist simplification of other’s choices. Each work is made with the surveyed person(s) in mind rather than my biases or experiences.