Anna Calleja fuses the intricacy of devotional paintings with the everyday trappings of contemporary life. In her new show at London’s Sim Smith, the artist presents an autobiographical selection of works in which she and other characters inhabit comfortable domestic settings. These scenes are cut through with moments of loneliness and tension, as figures zone out in front of phone screens and curl up in foetal positions.
‘I like ambiguity, that’s the point of a visual language, that you aren’t constraining it with words,’ says the artist. Two older pieces seem to represent the dual aspects of the work: love and melancholy. The Invisible String depicts the artist’s parents snuggled under a blanket, while A Stranger I Knew So Well presents a gaping hole in the bed where the artist’s ex-partner once lay.
