Présentation de l'artiste

Ana Bathe

Ana Bathe (*Belgrade 1987) is a multi-disciplinary autodidactic artist currently living and working in Berlin. By assuming the roles of subject, photographer, painter, sculptor, set and costume designer the artist is able to produce intimate works without compromise. This meditative process of designing an imaginary world attempts to integrate the artist into the aforementioned microcosm and through a series of cathartic and spontaneous movements captures it on film and in photography. These sessions, while being irrevocably shaped by childhood experiences of war-trauma and subsequently as a refugee, yet retain an immense childlike curiosity, resulting in otherworldly self-portraits.

Her works aim to offer playful glimpses into a psyche’s glorious isolation. She is fueled by the need to look deeper into the nature of who we are, to capture the inner surreal and to encounter as many parts of ourselves as possible. Can one ever truly feel like they belong to a place, a place beyond the confining architecture of our own bones? How adaptable and malleable are we as beings? The works ultimately aim to seek and release these various identities within.

Artist statement

Ana Bathe - Artist Statement: Portals

Scientific magic’s ever-present aura surrounds each and every one of us. It is the process of change that occurs in our earthly nature and beyond in the endless depth of the universe. These continuous developments represent the driving force for the artist’s desire to create. By playfully blending them with mythology, she summons glimpses into other realms of possibilities. Those arcane glances she refers to as her own Portals.

Any particular constructed portal may be found within remote parts of your mind or is reached only through an eldritch apparatus. In either case the otherworldly scenery is frozen in time but grants a soft focus to what may be just within reach.

While the artist’s first glimpses into other realities began in late 2018, they only became intensified through the worldwide lockdown a year and a half later. The artist constructed sets, elaborate in nature. She sculpted masks, incorporated prosthetics as well as special effect pieces and hand painted each individual item separately. Hereby the project aims to fuse photography, performance and other visual arts into one, ultimately resulting in an ongoing assembly of imaginary worlds. Yet the unknown remains strangely familiar. Those arcane glances she refers to as her own Portals.

All works are self portraits, as the artist creates multidimensional characters, who may appear spooky to some and beautiful to others. Human animal hybrids, characters merging with plants, myths, icons and many in between, this project flirts with the unknown, with fantasy, with dreamscapes.