ABOUT 

Anika Carpenter is an artist and flash fiction author from Kent now living and working in Brighton, UK. Her surreal collages, which began as a response to the 2020 lockdown, explore the dichotomy of the human psyche. The figures she creates exist either in a state of emotional repression or act out with narcissistic abandon. Carpenter’s work is concerned with psychological dynamics, in particular our relationships with ourselves, partners, friends and the natural world. She employs elements cut from fashion magazines to depict unbridled self-expression and images from the natural world: shells, fungi, reptiles to add layers of metaphor. Through precise pictorial arrangements she creates portraits of complex inner worlds laced with visual references to hiding, constriction, sex, disintegration and desire.

Carpenter studied art therapy at The Institute of Arts in Therapy and Education and fine art at Kingston University. Her work has been exhibited at Tunbridge Wells Museum and Art Gallery, Mascalls Art Gallery, The East Sussex Open and Towner Eastbourne.   

You can find Anika’s writing here.