Anna conceives the purpose of art today is no longer representation, but rather a fresh insight into the familiar. In a world where almost anything can be converted into ones and zeros and reproduced infinitely the value of the singular, the novel, the original, has never been greater. Art which makes us contemplate and consider the colour and complexity of the world around us is truly food for the soul. This is the basic of her passion to give us paintings of rooms, doors, and windows into which the real and unreal merge into the surreal.
A Visual Language
After many years as a professional artist some trends and themes become apparent in their body of work. For Anna Filimonova we can see that she is never content to rest on her laurels, always looking to stretch her skill and imagination into new visions, but the aim of creating an original visual language was always present.While her mastery of technique and skill with the brush was there from the beginning, it is the originality of her vision which marks her out. Colour untamed was the theme of her 'Oscillation' series, but then it was captured inside the windows and doors of her 'Opportunities' and 'White Rooms' series. Recognition through awards and by gallery representation give her the confidence to use the idea of capturing a view as seen through a window in her 'Looking Out' series. Using the idea of a window to transform a view into a scene, and one that we feel we can possess, allows her the freedom to shift her focus from one idea to the next without impeding her distinctive style.
Chromatic Concepts (2024 on)
For some time Anna had been seeking a way to present an urban scenes in keeping with her distinctive approach to landscapes and composition. Her landscapes in particular have a otherworldly feeling to them, so the challenge was how to take a city scene and present it in a new way, one which would allow the observer to see the familiar in a new light. In 2024 she began to explore that approach literally. She began to master how to show a city as a creature of light, giving birth to her ‘Chromatic Concepts' series of cityscapes.
Surreal art is most often considered as mix of fact and fantasy. Here the mix comprises the fact of a city and fantastical depictions of it a myriad contortions of colour, truly a chromatic concept of the urban cityscape. We can see in her interweaving of natural and fantastical imagery her desire to challenge us and to tell stories about ourselves, painting visions of the real and unreal for us to be moved and delighted by.