Anja Marais
Media - Sculpture
Email - [email protected]
Website - www.anjamarais.com
Anja Marais prefer to use non traditional materials to celebrate a non western cultural tradition. By using paper she is consciously breaking away from the hard materials and large scales of traditional sculpture. She creates sculpture and assemblage work from multi layers of her charcoal drawing, paper and found objects. She deliberately rejects those masculine materials and shapes for feminine ones. She accomplishes this when she exchanged her welder for a needle and tread to assemble her sculptures.
Marais was born and raised in South Africa where she received her BA(FA) at the University of South Africa. In this milieu she was influenced by artists like William Kentridge, Diane Victor and Penny Siopis. Since moving to the States she has shown her work in solo and group exhibitions nationally. Her art is clearly a reflection of her provenance with the merger of colonial Victorian elements and African folklore. -"As a child I was wrapped in the sounds and smells of the bush and I am still haunted by its many folk tales, fables and by its spiritual, mysterious deities and gods." By using haunting animistic images from this genre she tries to contain the movement between the natural and supernatural, a basic assumption of African folklore. A journey is created into an enchanted universe that also has the reality of this world. -"I cannot forget the many native songs and stories from my youth that lurk in my childhood memories of innocence and pure naivete, and in my art I
try to preserve this world."
Marais divides her time and residance between South Africa and the United States.
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