Biography
Introduction
Anita Bryan (1967) b. Liverpool, UK. Graduated in Theatre design from Nottingham Trent University (UK). Following this with Production Design at the National Film and Television School, Beaconsfield. Later completing a Masters level course in Documentary Features Direction from the University of Salford, UK (1998). Her graduation film ‘Time and Tide’, won a Royal Television Society Award. Recent exhibitions and screenings include: “Salon Des étrangers”, AI Saloni 47, Dorsoduro, Venice Italy (2024); “Salon Noir”, 54 Gallery, London, UK (2024); “G&S Summer Salon”, True Echoes, British Library, London, UK (2023); and “Doc City Shorts”, One Pool Street London, UK (2023). Residencies include; “Garden of Synchronicity PT 1 “, Brompton Cemetery, London, UK (2021); “The Weight of Mountains” Tissardmine, Morocco, Western Sahara, (2015); plus various experimental learning programs, London, UK (2016 – 25).
Anita Bryan’s photography has been published in magazines and books and used within funding materials for other artists. Her work is represented in private and public collections including: FoBC Art Collection, London, UK: MACO, Oaxaca, Mexico: TWOM Archive collection, Victoria, Australia, FQ Artacts Collection, Galway, EIRE; WWW Gallery Collection. PC, FL, USA amongst others.
Film projects and further artworks created with a strong cinematic eye and studied intuitive sensibility, clearly connect the poetic in her practice and which unconditionally excavates, the unseen from the quotidian present. Drawing out ulterior fictions, past histories, neglected character. Proffering questions and connections drawn out in consideration via stages/states of absence.
Viewing environments, the forms contained within and persons present as welcoming encounters of collaboration. Engaging these collaborations to produce new interpretation. ‘Whether hooked narratively or from a point of view of the abstract, what cannot clearly be seen or absolutely defined. My artistic practice and multi-disciplinary approach activates meaning through what is or can be felt, whether present or passed and from the pre-established fixed or fluid’.
Combining hard experience within documentary and fiction arenas, Anita connects wholeheartedly with the idea of artist/filmmaker as poet, as artist.
Artist Statement
I create artworks that reflect a sense of ephemeral histories and atmosphere. Objects and landscapes, moments of being, light on that shades of perception, that which we believe we see. Deep or partial traces, which pass us by in our familiar locale, such works as, ‘Negativeland’ or ‘Dearly Departed’. Exploring the quietess of seeing, in the fleeting moment. to investigate human and non connections of belonging such as in WHOSE ‘HOME’. Artworks as medium, excavating the inlands, connecting past-present, the future-past, in the ever Now; ‘Garden of Synchronicity’.
I look to harness the inconsequential and curious from the encountered environment. Often what can be noted in the margin/al. And from this, produce a series of photographs, or in film, installation, at times an object. These artworks often evade noisy interpretation, rather offering dialogue with more nuanced tensions.
Through research modes, thought and the material action I work with a multidisciplinary approach that roots itself within film, photography, print and occasional mixed media. Corralling other disciplines such as sound, literature and poetry to assist in activating meaning or generate connection. My artistic practice involves the development and instigation of hidden histories to encourage a thoughtful interaction. In this, I consider all my work as research, on an entwined journey of consciousness and unconscious reflections in belonging. Interpreted through systems of art, its relations with wealth, the human and non, process and structure, all can be found as starting points for my work.
The artwork is not necessarily pretty or conventional, outside of its final stage materiality and can possess a compelling mysterious quality that evades initial definition. Leveraging the borders between chosen medium and the ethereal potential to examine notions of : grief / landscape, memory / place, synchronicity / dream and how their paradoxical roles and correspondences can be explored to reflect certain complexities of human experience. These elements facilitate the development and propagation of a slate of works and thinking, showcasing creative experimentation and interaction.