Anna Weyant’s Beautiful Aggression

Anna Weyant is a Calgary-born, New York City-based figurative artist who paints often autobiographical narrative scenes that draw inspiration from a range of art historical precedents while injecting and contemporary, unique spirit.

1. Cincala Art: Tell me about your process. How do you begin?

Anna Weyant: I make a series of sketches. The image can change as I develop the narrative, so the sketches aren’t always fully rendered.

 2. CA: Do you paint one work at a time or do you sometimes have a number on the go?

 AW: I can only focus on one at a time, though I usually have a few in-progress paintings lying around. 

3. CA: Which contemporary artists working today would you say have been an inspiration? Have they influenced you in a particular way?

AW: “The Entertainer” by Jamian Juliano-Villani is one of my favorite paintings. I also adore Ellen Berkenblit’s portraits of screaming women. This isn’t contemporary but there’s a Frans Hals painting, "Two Laughing Boys with a Mug of Beer," that I can’t separate from Berkenblit’s work. One of the boys in the image, the boy on the left who isn’t the focus of the painting, is open-mouthed in a disturbing way. It’s an expression close to a smile but it’s joyless.

4. CA: How have you managed the lockdowns? Did it alter the way you work?

AW: I work alone and out of my apartment, so my studio practice doesn’t look very different. But the lockdown has probably added an emotional weight to what I’ve been making.

5. CA: Your first solo exhibition was in 2019 at 56 Henry in New York, next up is your second solo show, this time at Blum and Poe in Los Angeles — is there a prevalent theme to this new show?

AW: The exhibition is named after one particular painting, titled “Loose Screw,” which depicts a lone woman at a bar laughing. The figure in the painting looks somewhat desperate, lonely and unhinged. A lot of the work in the show focuses on fear, desperation, isolation and aggression.

CA: Thank you so much for your time Anna, and for the wonderful studio visit!

Anna Weyant (b. 1995, Calgary, Canada)

Anna Weyant’s figurative paintings and still lifes bring to mind childhood bedtime stories and nursery rhymes. Both familiar and ominous, Weyant's versions of these stories feature young female characters trapped in tragicomic narratives. Their stories take unexpected twists at each turn, illustrating complex personalities and attitudes, and an awareness of life's irony. Often autobiographical, Weyant’s characters are amusing and endearing, though simultaneously moody and dark. Her palette prioritizes dark greens and yellows, neutral hues that highlight juxtapositions of humor and solemnity, rebellion and repression. She references an eclectic range of art historical influences, from seventeenth-century Dutch painters like Gerrit van Honthorst to contemporary artists Lisa Yuskavage and Will Cotton, and pop culture references such as New Yorker cartoons, Bugs Bunny, and the Grinch.

Weyant received her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI. Weyant’s work was the subject of the solo exhibition Welcome to the Dollhouse at 56 Henry, New York, NY (2019). Her work has been featured in group exhibitions, including Life Still, C L E A R I N G, New York, NY (2020); Sit Still, Anna Zorina Gallery, New York, NY (2020); Humanmakes, Recharge Foundation, Singapore (2020); Historicity, Ochi Projects, Los Angeles, CA (2019); Of Pursism, Nina Johnson Gallery, Miami, FL (2018); and Circles without Breaks, Local Projects, Long Island City, NY (2017).

Biographical information courtesy Blum and Poe, New York