Anna Weyant

Anna Weyant's distinctive paintings and drawings portray characters facing everyday challenges, which she refers to as "low-stakes trauma." Often featuring young female figures, her precisely depicted scenes delve into tragicomic narratives with an ironic twist. Through these works, Weyant offers a surreal exploration of how popular culture and social norms shape and distort aspects of femininity.

Biography of Anna Weyant

Born in Calgary, Canada in 1995, Anna Weyant obtained a BFA in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design before moving to New York. She then furthered her studies in painting at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou. Returning to New York, she balanced her artistic practice with work as a studio assistant. 

One of Weyant's early exhibited series features a collection of darkly cinematic canvases portraying a dollhouse, inspired by her childhood toy, and its young female figures. Another series dissects the facade of American suburbia as seen in Lifetime's made-for-television movies, presenting it as a surreal space where violence and calamity linger just beneath the surface. In her still life compositions, Weyant presents fruit, flowers, and various objects in a disconcerting manner. For instance, in "Lily" (2021), she juxtaposes the central flower with a gilded revolver, creating an unsettling contrast.

Weyant's artworks, including those mentioned, feature a somber, subdued color palette of deep greens, dusty pinks, and rich blacks. Her influences span art history, drawing from seventeenth-century Dutch masters like Frans Hals and Judith Leyster, twentieth-century innovators such as Balthus, and contemporary painters like Jennifer Packer and Ellen Berkenblit.

Weyant's work has been featured in several group exhibitions, such as "I will wear you in my heart of heart" at FLAG Art Foundation, New York (2021); "Artists Inspired by Music: Interscope Reimagined" at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2022); and "Women of Now: Dialogues of Memory, Place & Identity" at the Green Family Art Foundation, Dallas (2022).