Nostalgia Painting

Anita Rozentale (b.1990, Latvia), lives and works in UK & Latvia. Anita has represented England’s South-East region for Lloyds TSB Art of Nurture, been a finalist in the Salon Art Prize (Matt Roberts Arts), was one of the finalists for the Summer Art Prize (Lacey Contemporary Gallery), long listed for BP Portrait Award 2016, and most recently – for FK Balva in 2018 (Latvia). Through a variety of media including but not limited to appropriation, collage, painting, photography, sculpture, and cyanotype, Anita Rozentale explores the differences in people’s cultural, political, historical, and social backgrounds and the selective imagery of subjective experiences - what makes a human being a person they aim to be? By questioning photography as a medium on its own right, Anita plays with what at first glance appears to be real but when looking closer - surreal narratives emerge. Anita calls this process “painting with photographs”. Photography is an heirloom, an evidence of things that have happened, a proof of something you have only heard of, a tool to convince. By touching on the themes such as evidence, Anita works with the authenticity of an image and its role in altering ones’ memory - how much is needed for a person to question the shifting states of their memory.