About

So, hi, I´m Anna, 26, a freelance artist with main focus on pencil drawings and sketchy doodles as well as a strong desire to further dive into the world of tattooing. The passion and need to draw has been accompanying me since I can think. Pretty much every remotely paper-like surface I laid hands on has always been sure to fall victim to my almost pathological compulsion to doodle on it. Still, I never saw myself as a creative person – quite the opposite, really. I was (and partly still am) horrified of situations where I just have to draw intuitively what comes to mind and improvise, and I´ve always felt like everyone around me is way more imaginative than I am. There´s this belief that, in order to call yourself a creative mind, you have to have this arsenal of innovative, unprecedented ideas that are available to you all day every day – and that looking for inspiration elsewhere just makes you a cheap copycat. That creativity requires the capacity to invent from scratch, basically. As absurd as this sounds, I fell prey to this absolutely delusional concept. This, of course, creates a huge load of pressure on yourself and the things you create. And my way of coping with it was to just consistently deny that I am something remotely close to an „artist“, but rather just a person who draws and paints a lot. I don´t put much importance on labels, and usually I´d say that it isn´t really important what you call yourself – be it „artist“ or „person who likes to draw a lot“. But, in this case, it turned out to be important: By forbidding myself to give me the „artist“-label, I denied my art and myself, as the creator of this art, alltogether. In short, I alienated myself completely from what I created and from the part of me who created it. I kind of lost sight of who I am, as I couldn´t connect with what I love doing the most. That wasn´t so good. And it led to bizarre things – like me drawing something, looking at the finished piece and wondering who on earth made this – there was just no part of me (at least none I could reach) that identified with it. That´s when and why I started to study painting in Essen, Germany – I thought that this way, I could finally (and forcefully) close the gap between me and my art. Well, that didn´t work out; the gap persisted and grew even bigger. I saw people around me expressing themselves through their paintings, experimenting and seemingly feeling at ease in doing so, whereas I felt completely out of place. I eventually dropped out of my studies after only one year – and during this year, I´ve felt as uninspired as I´ve barely ever felt before. Even though I studied art, I barely created anything, and especially nothing I even remotely liked. At times, the thought occurred that art just wasn´t „for me“ after all, and that I´d be better off finding something else to do. Fortunately, it has already dawned on me by that time that there were strongly built inner barriers that kept me from seeing and accepting myself as an artistic person.  The logical step to take in order to gain the mental maturity to tackle those barriers seemed to me to start studying philosophy. And so I did, at an anthroposophical highschool in a small town near Bonn, Germany, in a degree of studies that fruitfully combined philosophy and arts. I didn´t – and still don´t – know much about anthroposophy, but I was amazed at how well and routined many of the other students were in the reflecting on and communicating their feelings, how healthy their handling with their talents seemed and how at ease they felt with themselves. Almost scary, really. But also extremely inspiring, even though I felt intimidated by that right off the bat. So intimidated in fact that I basically never dared to speak up in class, openly say my opinion or express myself in any way. And fortunately, this stark contrast I saw between me and my classmates made me – after a long, very frustrating period of intimidatedly creeping back into my shell – eventually come out of it. A bit, at least. And ey, life outside the shell wasn´t all that bad. People didn´t (openly) laugh at me or find me weird, stupid (a fear that flourished even more when studying philosophy) or untalented. Quite the opposite happened. Where I thought I´d find embarrassement, I found appreciation for my work (be it writing texts or drawing). And appreciation for myself! Crazy. And I noticed that many other people struggled with the same fears that I had. All of these epiphanies (and many more) eventually gave me the tools to openly say: Ok alright, I guess I am good at drawing (and that, for me, is something). This uncharted boost of self-esteem brought me to a place where I could share my work online or in class – something I´d never thought I´d ever be able to do. It made me draw A LOT more than before, try to accept the little failures in between as necessary and valuable steps in the ongoing process and realize that art (more precisely: tattooing) is what I want to do for a living at some point. And it eventually made me establish an official business, create this website and write this text. I still haven´t fully eradicated any of the struggles I mentioned, but I became better at handling them and accepting them as part of who I am. They just increase the difficulty level of it all, and who doesn´t like a challenge? (I don´t, actually. But a little accepting goes a long way.)

Artistic Curriculum:

– 1995-ongoing: Drawing

– 2012-2015: Secondary school in Luxembourg with focus on Arts (with drawing, painting, technical drawing, design and graphic art classes incorporated in the weekly schedule)

-2014-2017: Bassist of the band „The Kooters“ and designing/creating the merchandise for the same (Albumcovers, T-shirts, Stickers, Totebags, Lighters, Posters, Flyers, Website)

– 2016: Studying painting at HBK Essen

– 2017-2021: Studying and completing „Philosophy, arts and social entrepreneurship“ at Alanus Hochschule in Alfter

– 2019: Conceptualising and creating diverse artistic projects at university (Including poster- and flyerdesigns)

– 2019: Part of an exhibition in my home town in Luxembourg

– 2020: Designing a vegan cookbook

– 2020-ongoing: Regular screenprinting at „Alte Vhs“ (local autonomous creative and social project)

– 2020-ongoing: Tattooing

– 2021: Designing an album cover for the musicproject „Fiof“

– 2021: T-shirt- design for the band „Echosex“

– 2021: Coverdesign for notebook „Dahara“ by the German company „Matabooks“

– 2022: Drawing on a daily basis

– 2022: Tattooing at “Fineline Atelier” in Bonn, GER

-2023: Own clothes collection with my illustrations for the organic fashion store “El Dorado Street Fair” in Dresden, GER

-2023: Designing shirts and postcards for the local organic stores “Kiss The Inuit” and “Lima´s Fairpackte Welt” in Bonn, GER

-2023: Selling Prints and printed T-shirts at various markets in Bonn GER

-2023: Tattooing at “Hidden Chamber Tattoo”, Bonn, GER

-2023: Designing a bandlogo for local band “Con.Fusion”

-2023: Part of exhibition “Hidden Gems” in Kamellebuttek, Luxembourg

-2023: Part of exhibition “L´Art-Rochette” in Larochette Castle, Luxembourg

Traditional media used:
Pencil, Fineliner, Acrylic, Oilpainting, Watercolor, Ink, Scratchboard

Digital media/ programs used:
Drawing Pad, Photoshop (mainly), Fresco, InDesign, Illustrator.