Anya Piechura
visual artist based in Reykjavík, Iceland.

I could tell I’m quite a good observer and one of my favorite parts in life is to validate those observations by interpreting them, glueing with something else and letting them bloom as a new narration. Sometimes, when I ride my bike through the park in the morning and see a sleeping swan,
I think about it for two weeks, draw it everywhere.
My paintings are also a by-product of processing emotions and breakups.
Music and song lyrics play a big role in there, making my brain constantly producing ideas and put me back to the place where I want to create a new painting. And another, and again. Just like this, from 12 years. Very often there is a song that I hear and then it just sticks so well, for so long, that I want to illustrate how certain fragments of it makes my body parts vibrate, collapse, produce tears, make me smile, or make me feel understood. I’m also creating to share the same feeling with others - to make them feel understood.
My education story is not very fortunate - I graduated Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź, Poland. Starting as a sensitive person passionate about painting and dancing, I ended up having a Master’s degree in Fashion and Textiles faculty. Sometimes I use my designer part of brain, but it’s not my favorite. Nonetheless, I chose to believe everything has a reason (I CHOOSE and sometimes I have to convince myself cause there is a part of me that endlessly, maniacally laughs about how everything is pointless) (and I love it). So, yes, being a fashion student probably helped me appreciate painting as a very direct, way of communicating and make me discover that hell yeah, it’s a great human activity.
In my practice I also pay a lot of attention to the body. It brings an amazing relief to put away all the tools needed for creating visual arts and focus on the sensations, do the check-in, update with the body. Be able to express, get tired, shake, sweat, breathe, scream, use the voice not only for creating words and conversations, but also as a part of expression.

I currently create at Phenomenon Art Studios in Reykjavik, Iceland.

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