ANYA JANESSEN

INTERVIEW // LIZ RICE MCCRAY

Anya Janssen’s work is formed by her absolute fascination for other people, their emotions, behaviors and mutual relationships. In series of narrative oil paintings, drawings and sometimes photographs and videos, she achieves a very intimate, direct relationship with her subject matter. The painted objects, bodies and places are given a simmering tension below the painterly surface. Her meticulous style lets her imbue lifeless objects with a balanced sense of both whim and resignation. She uses the word ‘begeesterd’ or spirited for the essence of the physical world that she captures. Many thanks Anya for taking the time to answer our questions. Dear reader, if you would like to see more of Anya Janssen’s art go to www.anyajanssen.com.

In your series Double-Edged you use identical twins, please tell us about this series?
I was planning on making new work to investigate mirroring, reflections and duplication, when all of a sudden I stumbled on the red haired, transparent skin identical twins in the streets of my hometown. I immediately realized they were the ones for the project called Double-Edged. They were sent from heaven. My twins are “mirror-image twins,” their appearances mirror each other symmetrically. The personality of the twins was determined by a life in which religion and tradition played an important role. The complex situation in which the girls lived - caught between the rules and values of a religious life on the one hand and the modern world on the other - caused the two to form an alliance, which was tightly closed to all outsiders. The project expresses the relationship between the twins, their relationship with their environment, and the precarious position of the identical twin as an individual personality. For five years I worked with them. We still see each other and I’m still photo- graphing them. So who knows, one day I’ll start a new project with the adult twins.

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Your paintings could be described as case studies – obser- vation of character, human behaviors, almost an obsession to resolve secrets and understand your subject. Your fasci-nation for other people reflects in your paintings, giving usthe viewer a very intimate glimpse of an underling narrative. Will you tell us about your process to connect with your muses and how you choose them?

I’m curious where are you at this very moment while I’minterviewing you. Will you describe where you are right now, this way everyone reading along can imagine the setting and have a visual?

Well, actually I don’t choose them, they choose me. All my projects arise because of my obsession for other people – their lives, their emotions, behavior and mutual relationships. I sometimes feel like a stalker. It’s important for me to achieve a long-term and intimate relationship with my subject matter. Tra- ditional contradictions, such as “me and the other,” “power and vulnerability” and the “nature vs. nurture” controversy are being questioned over and over again. In series of oil paintings, draw- ings and sometimes photographs and videos I tell tales through impressions and observations.

In my studio – a big, light, white space on the second floor of my home, with northern light shining through the windows. I’m sitting on a transparent chair at my glass table; in front of me on the wall are images, photos and texts that inspire me or deal with the current project I’m working on. Next to me sits a display cabinet with skulls, skeletons, taxidermy and animals in formaldehyde (my hobby since I was a child, an ‘Arc of Noah’...). A few little enamel paintings on aluminum on the table, big paintings leaning against the opposite wall. I like to work on several paintings at the same time. The painting itself is a slow, almost meditative process. The works often have up to ten layers of paint, and each glazing layer needs about one week to dry. I want to be surrounded by the work, so they communicate with each other and me; they are part of one story. And then there is always the music, varying from punk rock music to Japanese Gagaku.

In my early work I used my own body as a metaphor for human behavior and to show that we are all monsters with animal urges (although we pretend to be led by our ratio). After this series my focus shifted from the behavior of human mankind in general to one specific human being. I studied psychology for two years, in order to get a better understanding of human behavior. At that time my models were friends and relatives; they worked under my direction within a fixed scenario. I created images that were totally my own. But after I met identical twins that changed. The people I painted became muses; they entered and ruled my paintings. I let myself be guided to a great extent by the reality in which my muses live. I go with their flow...

I have gradually come to the realization that connecting with someone means letting a fragment of their being become part of me. He or she becomes part of my being and vice versa. I am far less autonomous than I believe to be. The others are of great importance for my existence, to understand things, to fathom myself. A porous identity replaces static “I” with a fluid “we.”

So tell us what is the process you use to conceptualize apiece, refine it, “test” it, etcetera?
The more I try to control, the less magic I get. So I try to stay open and surprised, without a fixed goal or destination when I’m starting a project. So I walk a lot in the forest close to my house; that’s where I get the ideas for new paintings. In my studio I study randomly images on the internet, photo/art books and magazines, I read poems and nonfiction and fic- tion books, then I write down sentences or words that come to my mind. I make circumferential movements in my studio. Then slowly things are starting to unfold and I can start to paint or draw. It’s a bit like when the first explorers filled out the empty plains of the world with the things they encoun- tered: trees, mountains, rivers, villages, life drawn in scale. I capture moments; glances and details that eventually will form the complete image.

Where can people check out more of your art?

At my website, Facebook and Instagram, at www.pattymorgan. net, and at Torch Gallery in Amsterdam and Janine Bean Gal- lery in Berlin.

Many thanks for taking the time to answer our questions. Any last words for our readers, shout-outs, declaration of love or hate?
The revolution will not be televised - Gil Scott Heron. And the first four sentences from William Blake’s “Auguries of Inno- cence,” which are tattooed on my right upper arm.

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour”

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer our questions.