Anna Woodward (b. 1998, Tunbridge Wells, UK) currently lives and works in London. Her practice looks to create fantasy worlds that sit between utopia and dystopia, creating a space that is beyond the realm of the viewer's reality. A space where biomorphic forms grow freely yet there is still evidence of the human made.
Woodward works predominantly in oil on linen, working in a series of layers to create intensity, perspective and depth. Being particularly interested in ways of painting and drawn to contemporary artists such as Julie Curtiss and Jane Hayes Greenwood, whose practices sit between the surreal and the skill of the artist. Working in a series of layers that are broken into different painting languages, from the loose washes of oil paint, to highly rendered and voluptuous biomorphic forms that snake their way around the painting, and metallic rods that are engulfed by the biomorphic forms. All of these aspects come together to create an overgrown and wild world. Furthermore, there is an aspect of obsession and repetition in the way that Woodward approaches painting and her subject, evidenced through the repeated motifs and finite detail found within the work.