Through my painting and two-dimensional mixed media work, I explore the physical, psychological, and social context of my body, how both I and others perceive my body, and, eventually, how I perceive others in their perceptions of me. This thought process is rooted in larger external systems, such as sexism and hyper-religiosity, and how they affect our perceptions of our bodies. My conceptual inspiration draws on my place and purpose in the world outside of my experiences and memories in the Southern Baptist Christian religion in which I grew up, and in the years since leaving.

The paintings I am exhibiting for my thesis are comprised of oil paint with other supplementary mediums: pan pastel, graphite, and color pencil. My process in the larger three paintings – Full-blooded, Under My Breath, and Purge the Poison – began with photographing my own source imagery, using fabric from home and my own body. I sift through all my imagery to then create digital collages, looking for ways to evoke emotions like discomfort, absurdity, humor, and maybe even slightly grotesque. I turn to pan pastel to transfer my imagery onto wood panels, mapping out a structure for the painting. And thus, the actual painting begins. I paint in a macro-micro approach, detailing with smaller and smaller brushes with each pass in the painting. Once I have rendered the areas of the composition that I am most intrigued by, I look for areas in the composition that would allow for an emptiness, a place for the eye to rest. Once I have discovered where those areas are, I then make the choice to leave some as small voids. Other areas I tend to using graphite or colored pencil, creating pockets of mark-making debris.

My attention to detail and the overall compositions in my work are sourced from my bodily hyper-fixations and the ways in which I feel the inner workings of my body perform. My compositional choices ride the fine line between comfort and discomfort, using fabric as a metaphor for human anatomy, inside and out.

While the compositions themselves may not read as humorous to some, I see the absurd and bizarre nature with how my work exhibits the body. The complexity and range of emotions – joy, terror, hope, rage, sadness, relief – in my work are all critical to how I approach my studio practice as a full-blooded person.

Anna Lyle’s Website: www.annalyle.com

Instagram: @annalyleart