2024
The creations borne of Anna Mond’s marvelously strange brain noodles are gleefully grotesque, wickedly cheeky, ghoulishly precious brouhahas with a through line of the weirdest humor steeped in simultaneous cups of cracked darkness and silliness. A chorus line of goggle-eyed electric blue skeletons pirouette madly; a fuzzy mushroom-homunculi-thing drunkenly rides on the back of a bewildered spider; a celestial diablerie of witchy critters deliriously possess the midnight sky.
All manner of creatures and beings and God knows what else cavort and caper in garish, gooey blurbling blobs of color drooled across the canvas in a vibrant rascality of shenanigans. I stare at these paintings rapturously, my bones all vibrating in a mad, magic jig and they make me want to do something crazy!
…and I don’t think I am the only one! The comment section of the artist’s Instagram account are frenzied fever dream free-for-all digital art raves where everyone’s losing their minds in the best way possible.
Fans are obsessed with the imaginative artist’s work and are moved to express their wild interpretations and emotions. They compliment the canvases, caption them with an imaginary script or song lyrics or meme du jour, analyze the content, the inspiration, the technique; they ramble at length with the fables and fictions the work evokes in them; they share last night’s unrelated dream, and recipes, and various theories and conspiracies!
From what I can tell, Anna Mond is a somewhat enigmatic individual. The artist’s website doesn’t offer much in the way of information, and although the handful of interviews do illuminate various inspirations in the form of artists: Atsuko Tanaka, Clementine Hunter, Zinaida Serebryakova, Sister Plautilla Nelli and music: Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash and Elvis and a love of fairy tales and horror, I haven’t found much more insight into the mind of this artist.
One thing I did learn was that Anna Mond refers to the work as “Fantasticalizm”–and really, how peculiar and playful and perfect is that? Fantasticalizm! I don’t need to know anything more, really!
Just let me fill my eyeballs with these visions of wild, wondrous, weirdness forever, please.
Find Anna Mond: website // Instagram
If you enjoy these art-related writings, or if you have ever enjoyed or been inspired by something I have written, and you would like to support this blog, consider buying the author a coffee?
Melissa Kojima says
These are wonderful. Thanks for sharing her work. I wish there was more info about her. Do you know what they are made of? They look like either encaustics or enamel. It would be great to know.
S. Elizabeth says
I don't! She doesn't offer a lot of info on her website, but I do see from time to time she answers comments about her work and technique. I haven't seen anything about that though. Wait a second...come to think about it, I do believe I saw an interview question where she gave a non-answer. So maybe she won't be very forthcoming if a commenter asked her. I copied the exchange below:
"What techniques do you use to achieve the “melty” effect unique to your paintings?"
"Sorry, secret family recipe. But seriously, it’s not so different from mixing dough ingredients or cooking a stew."