Interview with an Artist and Beauty Seeker from Poland – Olga Maria Anastazja

“The reality often seems dirty and gray, experiences and beauty are single-use, the aesthetics are marketed, the love is deemed unnecessary. There’s only so much of this grayness I can take, so I hide myself in my room among my precious items, or I disappear into poetry, literature and art history. People like us need to dose reality so it’s not lethal, we need to transform it, metamorphose it into something bearable. I believe that is the meaning of artists and art admirers, to leave the world a more beautiful place.”

(Olga Maria Anastazja)

Olga Maria Anastazja, The Moth

My dear readers, I have something very exciting and unique to share with you today: an interview with a fellow beauty seeker, a Pre-Raphaelite enthusiast, art lover and an artist Olga Maria Anastazja! As an art historian, I am always on a lookout for contemporary art which I can enjoy, and sometimes that is difficult to come by, and that is why I especially appreciate contemporary artist who, in one way or another, follow the Pre-Raphaelite aesthetic and their passionate quest for beauty. Olga not only paints the beautiful paintings that you will see all throughout this post, but also makes many different practical yet unique stationary things such as bookmakers, stickers and journals. You can visit her Instagram and Etsy to see more, but to find out more about her artistic journey continue reading. Also, most of the paintings that I have shared here are from her most recent collection called “The Inner Cosmos” and I think they are so eye-catching and magical.

1. First of all, tell us something about yourself!

Hello and thank you for having me! I’m Olga Maria Anastazja and I’m an artist from northern Poland. I’m a self-taught painter, a paper artist and a self-proclaimed aesthete. I adore art, beauty and fashion of the past eras and they’re my biggest inspiration. I’m interested in art history, especially the 19th century in Europe and women’s portraits of all kinds. My job is connected to arts and crafts – I design and hand make various stationery pieces, stickers, journals, and as of recently, also original art for my little online shop. My life is driven by what I call “the quest of beauty” – discovering and collecting different aesthetics and incorporating them into my life and art.

2. What was your first introduction to Pre-Raphaelite art? Do you remember a particular painting that struck you and how did it make you feel? I grew up in a house full of art and art history in every corner. I always admired the canvas reproductions my parents collected, as well as porcelain, illustrated books, all kinds of trinkets and posters. It was also my mother who introduced me to the work of the Pre-Raphaelites. When I was a teenager, I started learning more about art history and doing my own research on 19th century painters. My mother tried to help and suggested that I look up this particular topic. Right then my life suddenly changed. Ever since I first laid my eyes on these paintings, I was forever lost inside this magical land of history and beauty. I remember being especially charmed by the works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti – it was love at first sight! His paintings, like “Lady Lilith”, “The Day Dream” or “La Ghirlandata” are still one of my most favorite sources of inspiration.

3. What came first, your love for Pre-Raph art or your love of painting? Are you self-taught or did you take drawing lessons?

I’ve been a self-taught artist since the very beginning. I’ve been dreaming up different visions of art projects ever since I remember, but it wasn’t until I was in middle school that I started teaching myself how to draw with an actual intention to be better. If it wasn’t for my school’s art teacher back then, who saw something special in me, I probably would have started much later. I wasn’t familiar with the Brotherhood back then. My inspirations of that time were the works of Alphonse Mucha, Junji Ito and Victoria Francés. I’d like to add to that answer that I’m currently taking professional art lessons after all these years! I might’ve not started that way, but it’s never too late to practice and find someone to guide you. During these lessons, I focus on learning anatomy, shading, composition, larger formats, working with pencils, oil paints, copying old masters and trying out different techniques.

4. American artist Robert Henri beautifully said that “The object isn’t to make art, it’s to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.” Do you agree? How do you stay in that state? How do you deal with creative blocks?

I absolutely agree with Robert Henri and in my reply, I’d like to add another quote by Anne Michaels that describes how I stay focused on filling my life with art: “Important lessons: look carefully; record what you see. Find a way to make beauty necessary; find a way to make necessity beautiful.” I really associate myself with the desire for everything around me to feel magical, artistic, inspiring. One of the things that helps the most is creating my dream working space and filling it with antiques, craftsmanship and paintings. One just has to stay inspired in a place like that! Of course I have art blocks like all the artists. Flipping through art history books is one of the remedies for that, but sometimes the source dries out too severely. Recently I found that trying something completely new, getting out of your comfort zone and experimenting is extremely important in overcoming art blocks. That’s how I got into abstract paintings lately – just to try and fight the blockage – and now I’m about to release a whole collection of such artworks! It was the only thing I was able to passionately devote myself to for a long time, so to all those who struggle – don’t be afraid to experiment!

The artist’s working space, picture found on her blog.

5. Describe your creative process. Do you listen to music while you paint? If so, which music?

Art begins and comes to life in a sort of manic, chaotic process. It begins with a Vision. It is sometimes brought to me by a powerful source of inspiration, astronomical observations, dreams, travels or being close to nature. I’m currently very privileged to own a tiny workshop – my antique Victorian desk and chest of drawers, filled with creative materials and decorated with all kinds of beautiful items that inspire me. That’s where my art is created, usually in a messy (but still manageable) clutter of different books, craft items, paints, brushes, cut-outs and papers stacked everywhere in my room. There is no art without even a tiny chaos! It’s usually late at night when I create, as I adore the quiet and peace of dark hours. I love to light candles and incense, put on music, make a pot of tea and create a special mood in my creative space. As for music, I usually try to choose something that, in my mind, fits the aesthetic of the project. I found that the melodies that match the style of my room and art are, for example: church music and haunting choirs, dark and witchy classical music, ominous playlists, songs with made-up words or slowed down versions of my favorite songs. But really, anything from my library or vinyl collection can fit perfectly (favorite vinyl for creating lately – the beautiful Emma movie soundtrack). I like to sing along to the music when I make something – the emotional load of the lyrics is another aspect magnifying the creative katharsis of the process.

6. What art mediums/techniques have you tried so far and what is your favourite at the moment? I see that you’ve painted a lot of gouache paintings recently, what do you like about the technique?

I’m afraid my life cannot be long enough for me to try every single technique that I’d like! So far I used gouache, watercolors, oil paints, acrylics, gray pencils, colored pencils, dry and oil pastels, inks, liners, and that’s only the art mediums. I also love all kinds of crafts, like collage, bookbinding, decoupage, embroidering, photography, scrapbooking, sculpting, not to mention all the techniques that don’t really have a name, like working with pressed flowers or creating rich, colorful letters. And what about writing and poetry? I’m always inspired and eager to try something new and there’s a myriad of things I’d like to learn, like jewelry making, crocheting, sewing or making music. For the next semester in the art school I attend, I’m going to take a course in ceramics and sculpting out of clay. I really can’t wait to make some beautiful everyday objects and trinkets! As you noticed, currently gouache is my go-to technique. In technical terms, I like the vivid colors, how you can layer the parts of the painting, the sort of flat and matte effect on paper, how easily it is to mix and blend and even erase or fix your mistakes. I find it to be an easy and pleasant technique for beginners and advanced painters. Really, everyone could love it for a different reason. For me, it just makes it easy to translate my ideas on paper. For that same reason, I love collage art, which is my second favorite technique.

7. Do you think you are more sensitive to colours when you paint? I find that I do, it is as if the world suddenly looks more vibrant.

Indeed, and not only colors! The eye of a painter is becoming more and more sensitive to everything in the world around them. Whenever I’m painting landscapes, all around me I see captivating frames, even in places I thought couldn’t be charming to me. When I’m painting flowers, all I can see is beautiful plants and curious shapes of leaves everywhere around me. When I’m painting celestial motifs, the night sky is the most fascinating view I can think of. You learn new colors, new inspirations, and new details in the world that bring you to your knees with beauty. And the most wonderful thing is, it stays like that forever, so the more you learn and create, the more sensitive you are, and the more fascinating the universe is.

8. Is it a struggle for you to remain true to the romantic ideals and embrace modern life as well? How to stay romantic in this unromantic-brave-new-world?

I’d like to quote a letter that I have written recently to a person who shares my aesthetic values and thoughts on the changing world: “(…)We dwell in the beauty and secrets of the past ages, historical Europe, we adore antiques and their second-hand stories, we’re collectors of books, art and all things lovely. I grew up around antiques, libraries and art books and the past always felt closer to me than present, it felt natural to me to live around ghosts and their trinkets. It was strange to find out that the world is not like that, and that it rushes to change to be more simple, minimalistic, bland, mechanical, soulless. The reality often seems dirty and gray, experiences and beauty are single-use, the aesthetics are marketed, the love is deemed unnecessary. There’s only so much of this grayness I can take, so I hide myself in my room among my precious items, or I disappear into poetry, literature and art history. People like us need to dose reality so it’s not lethal, we need to transform it, metamorphose it into something bearable. I believe that is the meaning of artists and art admirers, to leave the world a more beautiful place. One of my greatest inspirations are the artists of the Art Nouveau and Aestheticism movement, they saw the changes of the modern world and decided to fight it with all the forces of beauty, with art available for everyone, painstaking crafts, decorating anything that can be more beautiful. Sadly, this thinking is gone today, but it lives in the hearts of people like me and you – the lost aesthetes of the modern world.”

9. Is painting and being creative a way of escaping life for you? In a way that Anais Nin said: “I had to create a world of my own, like a climate, a country, an atmosphere in which I could breathe, reign, and recreate myself when destroyed by living. That, I believe, is the reason for every work of art.”

Anaïs is able to always find the perfect words! Creating art is, for me, making up a new world all to myself, a shelter, a dream, a new planet. In my private realm anything and everything can be beautiful, touching, special. It’s not an easy task to remain in this world – reality always tries to sneak in and change it to something hard and bland. But the more passionate you are, the more time you can spend in that other reality. I often wish to never come back, or I have a hard time adjusting to everyday life after the highs of creativity. It also makes showing your art to other people and putting yourself out there a little harder. It feels like inviting strangers into this private dream and hoping that they’ll try to understand the rules of it. But having those other people there is also very special and makes you appreciate your own work in a completely new way.

10. Pre-Raphaelite art is littered with representations of mythological heroines. Is there a figure from Greek or Roman, or even Slavic, mythology that you can identify with and why?

I think of Persephone (or Proserpina) as a sort of mythological patron saint of young girls who embrace their dark side. It’s the duality of the goddess that appears to a lot of ladies – her being the youthful maiden and the queen of the underworld both in one. She’s dark and mystical, but brings Spring back to Earth upon her arrival. In her there’s the shadows of the afterlife, but also fresh flowers and the awaking sun. She spends her time between the two worlds out of love – love for Hades and for her mother, Demeter. Her attribute is the pomegranate, a symbol that I used in my work as an indication of artistic fertility. Every Spring I pray to her to come back to the world sooner and to grant me some sun-kissed freckles, warm weather and beautiful spring flowers. Her story is fascinating and has a special place in my heart.

Tamara de Lempicka, Young Woman in Green, 1927–30

11. As a Slavic person, does it sadden you that Slavic artists are so often unrepresented? Which Polish painter do you think the world should know about? Hidden Polish “art gems” that you’d like to share?

It’s true that the painters of my country aren’t as popular as a lot of similar artists from Europe. When I’m travelling to different art galleries in the continent, I noticed that there are certain names and styles that appear in almost all of them, but rarely are there any painters from Poland. It is quite sad, because our rich and long culture isn’t represented a lot and it should be a lot more known. At least I think it is fascinating! As for the artists themselves, the first one that came to my mind is Zdzisław Beksiński. His dark and surreal artworks really scared me when I was younger, but I still stared at them, captivated. They’re hypnotizing, although often unsettling, resembling a dark and mystic dream. Just this month I had the chance to visit Kraków and in it, the house of Józef Mehoffer, which made me gain more appreciation for this artist. He represents the period of the Art Nouveau movement in Poland, with stunning stained glass designs and unreal and magical paintings. His house is full of stained glass and designs for them, and they’re truly mesmerizing. Another Polish-born painter that I never saw mentioned is Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann. This incredible female painter created mostly portraits from her many travels and life spent in Denmark. Truly worth seeing, but sadly her works aren’t exhibited even in Poland. I also have a lot of admiration for Tamara Łempicka, representing the Art Deco movement. Her vivid colors, rough shapes and queer influences are unlike anything in our history. She’s truly an inspiration!

12. And finally, do you have any artistic projects for the future that you’d like to share with us? Have you ever thought of illustrating fairy-tales?

It’s interesting that you mentioned fairy-tales in this question. A couple of months ago I started working on a collection of journals and stationery items based on classical fairy-tales and ballet, paired together with Pre-Raphaelite and Art Nouveau art. So far I have prepared Rapunzel, which is my most dear story, as well as Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake. I really can’t wait to show you the finished journals! I’m also currently creating an illustration for a classical Polish play with fairy-like influences for my art classes. The play is called “Balladyna” and it tells a story of a power-hungry peasant woman who would do anything to get the heart of the prince and the crown of the whole land. I would love to illustrate more fairy-tales in the future. They’re one of my favorite influences and a source of endless inspiration. I have a lot of projects in my head, but every time something new strikes my heart, I tend to change all of my plans and rush into creating while I’m inspired. Oh, to have the time and strength for all the plans and ideas – that’s what I wish for myself on my creative path.