Artists We Love: Anastasia Pather

INTERVIEWED BY Cheri Morris

Self-proclaimed reluctant artist and finger-painter Anastasia Pather creates semi-abstract artworks that are reflective of her explorative journey into her own sexuality, ethnicity, nationality and self.

Anastasia engages in an organic artistic process that allows for the shapes and surfaces of her artworks to develop through the viscosity of the mediums she uses, as well as the movements of her body. An abstract thinker with strong feminine awareness and thought-processes, we caught up with her to find out more about the brains behind the beauty.

You’re a self-proclaimed reluctant artist. How so?

Marlene Dumas is an artist, Shirin Neshat is an artist; they remind us to see and not just look. I am reluctant to give myself the same title because I think it’s something you earn and not something you fake. I am not there (yet).

Your unique finger-painting technique makes for an interesting, semi-abstract style. How did your relationship with finger-painting begin and why is it your preferred technique?

I don’t remember when I chose to be right-handed, I just don’t ever remember being left-handed. It is a similar thing to painting with my finger. It just feels stronger, more decisive and uninterrupted. I feel as if I am in the painting – like tracing the surface of your lover’s skin.

You describe your role as an artist as one that involves being a tastemaker and commentator. What do you mean by tastemaker and what commentary are you making with your work?

I wax and wane between having David Bowie confidence and crippling self-doubt. I certainly think artists play the role of tastemakers and commentators. When Lady Skollie presents her sex and her fashion as an art object she is changing things up similar to what Yayoi Kusama did to the polka dot and at times I think that by just being a South African, unmarried, female artist I’m challenging a stereotype even just within my extended family. But then sometimes I read this and think I should stop taking myself so seriously. It’s only art, but what a flipping spectacular thing it is.

Why would you say that your work is indulgent and self-absorbed?

My work is undeniably self-indulgent; I make it for myself but I love the action of doing it, because I feel most like myself when I am painting. Any abstract artist has to acknowledge that their work is self-absorbed because it comes from the self. I paint without a guide or a plan and let the paint pool and wrinkle organically. I then see certain images from that process and project or construct them further. I am currently working on a weaving project where I am cutting up rejected or tired paintings of mine and reworking them into something new. I see it as a reworking of myself as painter and a woman. You are the sum of (all) your parts, past rejected and admired.

Where and/or whom do you draw inspiration from?

Everything eventually makes it onto the canvas. Old flames, a really great rant in the traffic, remembering the Prosecco in Rome, the pastel palette and peeling paint of the art deco buildings in Durban. It’s a charmed life and I get to paint it.

Are you currently exhibiting and what’s next for you?

I have Cape Town Art Fair coming up, a solo show with 99 Loop Gallery later in the year and hopefully a little growth in style. Keep watching, I aim to please.

Keep up with Anastasia by following her on Instagram.