Practical Magic: Anya Rosen
Anya Rosen in their studio
Practical Magic is an online interview series with early and mid-career creatives. Through a selection of prompts we spotlight each person’s practice and (hopefully) prove art world creatives are the real influencers of today.
interview with: Anya Rosen
visual artist
For the month of August, each twice-weekly PM interview will be with a selected artist from our 3rd Open Call Exhibition Celestial Opera, Human Cathedrals. There is a strangeness in the scenese Anya Rosen paints - moody nightscapes, and skewed perspectives that seemingly mash the dreamland and reality. A bit more about Anya:
Anya Rosen is a painter currently based in Brooklyn, NY. Inspired by the relationship between humanity and natural resources, Anya has spent the past six years working on farms across the US. Their practice explores cultural associations between naturalness and morality through the lens of dreams and fiction literature. Their work has been exhibited at the Cambridge Art Association, Pensacola Museum of Art, Site:Brooklyn, and Trestle Gallery, and published in ArtMaze Mag, Floorr Mag, and Ain’t Bad.
Film noir and eerie, almost Lovecraftian storytelling gives Anya’s paintings a definite “otherness”. So hearing their interest in the horror genre came at no surprise. Read on for more juicy deets about their practice!
PP: If you had to pick a film that you feel inspires your practice in some way, which would it be and why?
AR: Lars von Trier's Breaking the Waves is a movie I still think about often. While the main character appears delusional to her community, she is grounded in her commitment to her spirituality and to her romantic partner. As the audience we are unsure of her reality but we trust her goodness and her convictions. This duality inspires fear but also tenderness, because we do not understand her but we love her. My interest in the psychology of fear around humans behaving instinctually (without control over desire), has introduced the genre of horror as an important player in my paintings. More recently films such as "The Lighthouse" and "Hereditary" have influenced my work as well.
PP: Did you receive a formal education for the work you do currently? Either way, do you think it has supported/informed the outcome of your career and your future goals?
AR: I graduated with a BFA in Fine Art from Carnegie Mellon University in 2011 and I definitely think my education there has supported my art career. CMU has a very conceptual program and my professors broke down my assumptions and opened my mind to what art could be. That being said, I never went back to school get my MFA, not because I don't think it is valuable but because I pursued a second career in agriculture that led me away from academia. My farming career has been equally supportive in my art education in that it has shown me the richness of the world - it is a part of my life I feel compelled to make art about, which in my mind is equally important.
PP: Current binge-worthy tv/film recommendation?
AR: I don't watch a lot of TV but I just finished POSE and those women are incredible. Such an important show.
Everything Possible to be Believed is an Image of Truth, 2019
PP: What to you was the most successful moment that you’ve had as a creative, and why was it successful or meaningful to you?
MN: When I moved to NYC I felt like my art practice opened up for me. Living in suburban Virginia I felt isolated from both the art community and the queer community, and I knew that I needed to be around working and living artists in order to grow. I worked on my portfolio, applied to residency programs, quit my job, and moved to a city where I made new meaningful connections. I joined NYC Crit Club and met Catherine Haggarty and Hilary Doyle who are incredible and encouraged me to approach my work in new ways. I've learned so much about myself and my art in the one year I've lived in this city - there is nothing in my practice that has felt as successful as that growth.
PP: What is a typical day in the life for you as a creative? How do you structure your day/week to manage your practice?
AR: I work a full time job at a hydroponic farm in Brooklyn so that is something I constantly have to balance with studio time - on weekdays I'm farming so evenings, weekends, & days off are spent in the studio. My practice is deeply research based and I do see my farm work as a part of that research, as well as my practice of reading fiction literature which is an essential part of my art making. Once my research has uncovered an idea or feeling I want to illustrate I enter the studio with momentum. I try to schedule long studio sessions because I find I work best when I have time to settle into making. If I don't have the luxury of an extended time period, I sketch, read, or write.
“Both paintings here are a reference to Bram Stoker’s Dracula.”
(L) They Began Making Promises and (R) All These Lives Could Be Yours, with a Lysol container for scale
PP: Who or what are major influences for you right now and why?
AR: Queer literature! I just finished reading "In the Dream House" by Carmen Maria Machado ("Her Body and Other Parties" is an equally beautiful collection of short stories by her that I cannot recommend more), "On Earth We are Briefly Gorgeous" by Ocean Vuong, "Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls" by T Kira Madden, and "Mostly Dead Things" by Kristen Arnett. Olga Tokarczuk's "Drive Your Plow Over The Bones of the Dead" and "Flights" have also influenced a number of my more recent paintings which both explore loss, loneliness, and cultural associations between naturalness and morality.
PP: What's your favorite article of clothing to wear and why?
AR: Everything I own I wear until it falls apart. I'm a jeans and a t-shirt person. Plus maybe a baseball cap and boots, and a jacket in my backpack. I like to feel ready to go at all times - who knows where the day will take me? Gotta have pockets. I feel naked without pockets.
view of Anya’s studio including We’re Getting Out of Here (center), the painting included in our 2020 Open Call Show
Practical Magic interviews post weekly on Thursdays - check back to see who we’re chatting with next.