Anna Marten

Artist Statement:

In 2024, after nine years as a production illustrator who hand-painted signs and murals for a grocery store, I stepped away from my position and began to reimagine my creative process without the barriers of a corporate art world. I’m now getting reacquainted with the parts of myself that create for creation’s sake. As an avid daydreamer, I acknowledge that memory plays tricks on us. If there’s a boundary connecting memory, reality, and fantasy, then my art probably exists between all three. Lesser observed spaces draw my attention because I’m interested in the implied environment rather than the literal one. Whether there’s a narrative to be uncovered or imagined, I enjoy recentering overlooked and candid moments as fantastical realities.

Illustrating words was my primary livelihood for so many years, but I’m now more interested in exploring the conversation that exists between mediums. How do I conjure a story with both photography and painting? Can the two styles of communication work together while maintaining separate identities? In working together, is the result decipherable or purely fantastical? As an interdisciplinary creator, I’m open to learn or experiment with whichever mediums work best for each project.

Artist Bio:

Anna Marten is a Kansas City-based multimedia illustrator with a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute. She approaches traditional processes such as hand-lettering and painting with vibrancy. Her professional practice has incorporated hand-painted signs, murals, and displays into Kansas City businesses for over a decade. As an interdisciplinary artist, she has utilized screen printing, photography, acrylic paint, found objects, and sculpture for exhibition pieces. A few exhibit collaborators include the KC Fringe Festival, MCC, InterUrban Arthouse, and Vulpes Bastille.

In 2023, Anna accepted a long-term art residency with Englewood Arts; a grassroots art center in Independence, Missouri. Independence being her birthplace, this transition stirred a myriad of origin-rich emotions coupled with a desire to foster artistic growth within the city. Her residency projects often center around social impact and inclusive local enrichment, such as community murals and instructing art classes onsite. A recent collaborative project between residents titled “Ladies, Make-It!” highlighted women makers in a vendor pop-up which raised money for Englewood Arts.