
Drawing on found photographs from private family albums and the public realm of the internet, the paintings of the Czech-British artist Anastázie Anderson possess an intimacy – even a tenderness – that belies their large scale. Here, we see images of Anderson’s mother as a young woman, the artist and her sister as children, and an unknown Czech boy from the 1930s, who peers out uncertainly from beneath a broad, vaguely military cap, as though anticipating trouble to come. The sense of different eras converging is driven home by a painting of Prague Castle, a complex of buildings that gathered together between the 9th and 19th centuries. In Anderson’s depiction, this huge edifice resembles an architectural model, or even a doll’s house – a space where time is suspended, and fantasies are played out. If Anderson’s show has a presiding spirit, then surely it is the Siamese cat who was her household companion through her childhood and adolescence. Gazing at us through its crystal blue eyes, it is an unknowable animal consciousness, a being beyond the human temporal realm.
Anastazie Anderson (b. 1995, Prague, Czech Republic) is a Czech-British painter living and working in London. She is known for her large-scale compositions and bold cropping, which reframe snapshots drawn from home photography, social-media imagery, and cinematic iconography. Her paintings transform personal recollections into scenes that feel dreamlike, uncanny, or abruptly direct. Anderson’s practice examines how mediated images construct fantasy, blurring the familiar and the surreal through flat planes of color, playful naivety, and a refined hard-edge sensibility.
She completed a BA in Fine Art at Falmouth University before pursuing a MA in Painting at the Royal College of Art, for which she was awarded a scholarship from The Bakala Foundation. Recent exhibitions include Like a Beacon Against the Cold at LBF Contemporary in London and Imitation of Life at YveYANG Gallery in New York.
