Meet the artist: Anna Marrow

Anna Marrow's distinctive birds and quirky characters add a burst of colour to our annual summer exhibition

Stripy Birds

Anna has been working as a printmaker, illustrator and image-maker for 20 years since studying Fine Art in Bristol and Communication Design at Central Saint Martins. She now draws at home and makes prints at Spike Print Studio, Bristol, working with household paints, biros, fine liners, pencil crayons and screen print. Most of her prints begin as biro and ink drawings in her sketchbook which are then are developed into collages, and later become screen prints.

Beautiful Bristol

Anna makes surprising, sometimes humorous or alarming images by combining mundane objects and environments with exotic creatures and characters.  Pinpointing a specific moment in time, she is often drawn to objects from her childhood such as 70s televisions, radios and cars which all feature heavily in her work, as do urban and suburban landscapes. Anna loves architecture, particularly Victorian and contemporary brutalism, a combination of the two echoes most of the places she has lived; Liverpool, London and Bristol.

"My main concerns are detail, specific drawing, surprising colour, composition, and believable storytelling. I love the craft of drawing and think it is more important than ever in our fast-paced digital age -  to take time out and observe carefully." 

Gold Top

She enjoys the innocence and romance of old musicals and likes to draw the characters from them. Birds also feature in her work, she is drawn to them because of their contrasting features, soft feathers and sharp beaks, and fascinating details; for Anna, birds represent freedom, ambition and imagination. More recently she has been looking at people who are attempting to fly - divers, wing walkers, synchronised swimmers and Evil Knievel will all be appearing soon so watch this space…

The Summer Exhibition featuring limited edition prints by Anna Marrow will be on show from 17th June 2018