Artist Statement

The more I got interested in creating art, the more I realized that art was a life journey for me. I realized that art encompasses the totality of human experience. In art, there exists philosophy, spirituality, religion, history, love, and hate. An artist reflects what she/he has seen, felt, dreamt, experienced, envisioned. The tech revolution, social media, the global political climate, as well as the overabundance of available information have infiltrated my entire being. So I explore these themes in my work from the standpoint of human evolution. Art has enabled me to take a closer look at myself and the world.

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Biography

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Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, Anya emigrated with her family at a young age, first moving to Israel and then Germany before finally settling in New York in the mid-’70s, where she has lived ever since.  Working in oil and digital rendering, Anya reflects upon the social, political, and spiritual conditions of contemporary culture, capturing the essence of a reality where everything is interconnected, and information is available at the same moment as an event occurs.

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In her most recent series of oil paintings, Anya’s portraiture explores the idea of self-representation and its distorted reality, especially concerning society’s narcissistic obsession with social media and selfies. Utilizing a visual language that depicts human interdependence, she defines a world where the individual human psyche is in constant motion with all others. She creates an environment where foreground and background are inseparable, containing social, political, economic, and emotional events. Figures and objects are woven into a tableau with moments of life layered one over the other — shifting and responding, and inextricably linked.

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Anya has exhibited extensively throughout the US and Europe. She has enjoyed several solo exhibitions in New York City and Miami since 2004. Her works have been recognized with many prizes and awards, including Leonardo Da Vinci and Botticelli prizes in Florence, Italy (2016 and 2015, respectively) and many others.