Anamnesis Painting

Anca Danila is a visual artist born in Transylvania, Romania and based in Dublin. She graduated in Fine Arts, BA (2008) and MA (2010), at the University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Anca Danila explores the convoluted world of modern identities. Specifically, her paintings investigate the interplay between our ‘true’ selves and the ever-multiplying identities we adopt in our lives. Leaning into the mobile affect of digitalised globalization, they attempt to make sense of how past and present, family and larger social dynamics, are playing in the kaleidoscope of the identities we hold at different moments in our lives. By visually translating insights from psychology, sociology and anthropology, Anca’s paintings create a dialog between “past” and “present”, “here” and “there” in a space of togetherness beyond borders. She draws on her and her brother’s personal experiences as migrants, him being the main model for many of her works. Through the deep psychological investigation of family constellations, Anca’s work highlights the cyclicity of patterns and the layered narratives we tell ourselves and the others. Her paintings offer pathways towards escaping or breaking these patterns in order to grow and move forward in more sustainable ways. The personal nature of Anca’s painting brings on canvas the raw intimacy and vulnerability of observing the inner self and participating in the suffering of the world with our outer identities. The paintings confront us with the many identities that we all adopt to navigate our shared world, and the manners in which we interact, conflict, and harmonise with our own sense of self.