Anna Woodward

thumb|'A Shower in the Mountains, Manoa Valley' by Anna Woodward Anna Woodward (1868–1935) was an American painter who was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1868. She studied painting at the Académie Julian in Paris with Tony Robert-Fleury, Jules Joseph Lefebvre, and William-Adolphe Bouguereau, and also with George Hitchcock in Holland. By 1918, she moved to Hawaii from Paris with a studio near Waikiki. She was influenced by the impressionist movement, creating landscape portraits. During the 1920s and 1930s she produced illustrations and paintings for Paradise of the Pacific. Quotes Art has always been a big part of my life, I can always remember sitting down and painting and drawing with my sisters, and art would always be spoken about. When I was studying the IB I then realised that all I wanted to do was make art and that’s when I decide to take a gap year and then apply for City and Guilds. Tell me, what is your artist story? Was it an inevitable thing written in the stars or did you have a Eureka moment you knew this was the career for you? I am really inspired by Flora Yuknovich’s work, I think as soon as I arrived at City and Guilds and saw her paintings I feel in love with them. I am also really inspired and fascinated with botanical studies and love visiting Kew Gardens. Within my work I try to bring the loose, bold and dynamic style of Flora’s work alongside the minute details found in floral studies, whilst recreate and transcribing classical mythological paintings. Who or what are your influences? How do you see these coming out in your work? This year I have been looking the play Antigone by Sophocles. At the beginning of my project I tried to find as many classical painting representations of the play and then I work from these paintings to create my own work. I am really interested in the beauty of these paintings and the dark tales that they often depict, and this battle between aesthetic beauty against the dark truth of human behaviours. What would you say are the main themes/ narrative running through your work? I have just completed my degree series which I have been working on in lockdown. I have really enjoyed making it, however my dream series at the moment is just being able to make work in a large studio where I can work to any scale and have space to stand back. Lockdown had really shown my the importance of having a studio and the space to look at your work. What are you working on at the moment, and what would be your dream project? When I paint I listen to the Harry Potter audiobooks on repeat. What are your artist essentials? Whaaaaa I’m not sure, on my gap year I worked on a super yacht which was a crazy, exhausting and bind blowing all at the same time. What is something people would be surprised to know about you? The Garden of Earthly Delights by Bosch, I am obsessed with it. If you could own one piece of artwork in the world, what would it be? My work is inspired by Renaissance period paintings depicting Greek mythology. I am currently focusing on The Odyssey by Homer. The Renaissance paintings represent the drama within these stories, with dynamic compositions and rich colours. I use a range of different paintings depicting the myth to create a collage on Photoshop, breaking down the classical structure and the figuration; creating contrasts between scale, composition, figuration and abstraction. From them, I create large-scale paintings constructed in layers using a variety of mediums; oil, gouache and acrylic. The paintings start with a layer of gouache, blocking in colour and mapping out movement. Then acrylic paint is used for the floral patterns to intensify the placement of colours and black/grey structural lines breaking through the work. For some time now, I have been developing the use of organic floral forms to apply a different painting language when recreating these classical paintings. I am interested in breaking down the barriers between the decorative and the fine arts. So, rather than purely decorative, I see the floral and feminine forms as a different language of abstraction. In this layer, the acrylic is built up and overlaps with changes in scale to create depth. In the final layer oil paint is used, which is applied in glazes to push back areas and for the floral patterning. The oils create a unique, opaque effect as they sit on the surface. External links Category:Women artists Category:Painters from the United States Category:Women from the United States Category:People from Pittsburgh Category:1868 births Category:1935 deaths Category:Women born in the 19th century