artist profile: Anna Gormezano Marks

commissioned by: boom saloon issue 005 | Resolve

copy: Anna’s practice seeks to make sense of the intangible moments suspended between one fixed point and the next. Themes of language and translation are a constant within her work, which currently focuses on encapsulating the paths of decision, or trains of thought, through gesture. How do our instincts dictate our movements? What influences us? And what comes next?

“Recently I’ve been making more digital work, which was something I’d fought against in my practice, despite the convenience. My emphasis has primarily been on the particular quality of the drawn line as there is an immediacy inherent between tool and space which, for me, encompasses the aspirational simplicity of communication, coupled with the complexities in the warmth of human inaccuracy.

The human condition embraced, mistakes seen as opportunities – permanent, honest and resolute.

Working in digital has been a symptom of my environment and has forced me to liberate my process, allowing access to the methodical immediacy to explore rhythm in my compositions and, in ways I’m far from fully understanding, animating the language of the intangible I’ve developed.

This piece is a digital study from my A to B series, initiated as part of the 100 Days Scotland Project, which helped me frame my ideas at a particularly apt moment. We find ourselves existing in a time of monumental change; our environment is not as we have known it – have we ever really known it? Grappling with enforced restrictions, maintaining separations from emotional pillars in our lives – family, inspiration, personal relationships – are all symptoms of our circumstances, and despite my fiercely independent disposition, I have never felt so alone.

Think: one person canoe.

Now, we mourn the loss of a future story we thought we once knew, where the course of possibility has reached the truly abstract with little certainly to steer us through. The focus needs to be on the here and now, what we can affect. Survival in our immediate environment has become priority and forced us to confront the very real challenge of living with ourselves.

This collective experience of isolation, depression and instability has affected us all in one way or another throughout this time. It has highlighted the extent of the inequalities which fail to value or adequately bolster such freedoms as self-motivation within our society, directly affecting our ability to cope.

Through these drawings, I’m allowing myself time to understand my own resolve for the now – as far as I can see it. I am coming to believe that if we all take the time, in our own way, in our own language, to attempt to listen to our intuition and tap in to our inner problem solver, we will strengthen our values and motivations as we move together to the next moment.

Moments from now, moments from now, moments from now.

This project is ongoing.

chapters/ contents copy: The human condition embraced

artistic discipline: drawing & words

location (city, country): Edinburgh, Scotland

published: 2021