Meet Anne Desmet RA
We’re so excited to have Anne Desmet RA as one of our Art on a Ukulele Artists at Art on a Postcard. Anne Desmet RA is a British Artist living and working in London and across Italy. Anne works with Wood and Lino print as well as collage to depict the built environments in which we live. She studied at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art at the University of Oxford and London’s Central School of Art and Design. Anne has won over 30 international awards and is a Member of the Society of Wood Engravers as well as the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers. In 2011 She was elected a Member of London’s Royal Academy.
British Museum, annedesmet.com
Anne’s work is centred on documentation and interpretations of Urban Landscapes. London provides the subject much of her work and it is no surprise. London is one of the few places in the world where you can go to totally disappear, the buildings go up and come down and the place literally morphs around you. For those that live here you are subject to perpetually redefining where it is you call your home, because it never stops changing. Anne’s work is an artist’s response to this; it is an exploration of the sense of ‘timelessness and solidarity of buildings’ but also their vulnerability.
Olympic Site in Construction III, annedesmet.com
Her series ‘Olympic Metamorphoses’ is a response to the development of the Olympic Stadium that she could see right outside her window in East London. When she first heard about it being built she immediately got on the bus up the road and went to have a look around. It was then that she did her first drawings of what would then become an entire series of wood etchings. Once security tightened Anne couldn’t gain access to the site so drew from photographs from helicopters and glimpses she could see from her house instead. This has created an amalgamation of various perspectives which give her work a 3-Dimensional quality, and when this is matched with the physical depth of the wood prints, Anne’s work is representative of the 3-Dimensional space taken up by the subjects of her prints.
Bermago, annedesmet.com
Much of her work done in Italy similarly reflects the architecture and its history. In Bermago for example, she uses collages and fragmented pieces of wood to represent the landscape of rooftops. A reminder that the parts make up the whole; with every new roof and addition and to the environment, the landscapes in which we live are created. Anne in her own words is an artist who is ‘very excited by the developing landscape’ and her work is a testament to human development and an ode to the ever-changing environments we call our homes.
We’re extremely excited to see in what medium Anne Desmet approaches our Art on a Ukulele project, so please join us to find out more by signing up to our mailing list (at the bottom of the page) to receive updates about this project and to find out about our crowdfunding campaign, the rewards we are offering and be part of the process over the next few months.
About the writer
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Rosa Torr is a final year BA Politics and Philosophy student from London currently at University College Dublin. Her place of interest is political theory and in particular Gender Studies. Rosa has written for numerous online publications and the University Observer. She is also a theatre maker and is currently co-artistic director of BUMP&GRIND Theatre Company. The show she co-wrote BUMP will be on at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this summer. |
