Anna Hodges
Anna Hodges is a graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. She also studied painting
at Baltimore School for the Arts and Schuler School of Fine Art. Anna is a writer as well as an artist. The themes in her stories carry over into her paintings.
ARTIST STATEMENT:
Through painting, I attempt to transform something as intangible as a thought or specific emotion into something physically shared by
others. In a sense, it is the act of converting a piece of the soul (which is unreachable through the senses) into something within the world of shared physical existence. I aim to
express these ideas within subject matter including personal memory, thought, and environments I wish to see or feel strongly comfortable in. The intense immersion in realistic painting
technique allows for this to happen. I write fictional stories of fantastical places that inform my initial understanding of the painting(s) before I create them. I believe that all
creative forms are similar and originate from the same place in the soul, so by pulling out of myself from many different places I can reach a working process that is more eclectically
informed.
I view my paintings as rehearsals for inevitable events that will occur, for instance: death. The present moment is always once
considered a future time but immediately turns into past once it can be recalled, which leaves it to reside only within the human mind as a virtual, remembered event to never recur. By
placing the mindset within a future time as if it were the present, one can mentally live in essentially any time. I believe that states of mind and personally constructed concepts allow
us to function as whole and grateful individuals. I desire perpetual peace and am satisfied with creating paintings that harbor intangible places I care deeply about. My paintings are
attempts rather than finalized conclusions or absolute findings. I don’t believe that anything can ever be actually found but I reach a feeling of intense purpose in the searching.
