Anna Weyant: The Young Rising Star in Visual Art

Anna Weyant is a New-York based artist and the youngest artist represented by the well-known Gagosian gallery. Her works have been auctioned and sold for more than $1 million, in reputable art institutions, like Sotheby’s and Christie’s.

Her paintings are vibrant in dark hues and realistic representation, depicting what the artist called “low-stakes trauma”. Her subjects mostly are young women immersed in “tragicomic narratives” in everyday life scenes. Weyant’s paintings have a dreamlike quality, showing the capacity of popular culture to challenge “gestures, rituals, and signifiers of femininity”, writes Gagosian’s official website.

“Falling Woman” (2020) is one of Weyant’s amazing works, portraying a woman in an upside-down position, her mouth gasping, and her eyes wide open as if she was shocked. The woman looks like comes from the baroque era, wearing a gown with a tight bodice and her chest bulging from the tightening an apron.

The title plays with the term “fallen woman”. In Victorian England, “Fallen Woman” usually describes a woman who had sex before she is married, whether voluntary or against her will, occasional or professional (prostitute). The woman was considered to have “fallen from the grace of God” or “transgressed the sexual norms” in the Victorian era. The fallen woman often becomes a subject throughout art history. However, Weyant seems to suggest a self-determined woman rather than criticize them like in the victorian period. In this painting, Weyant’s intense chiaroscuro also reminds the viewers of the works of Dutch Masters, as Sotheby’s website writes, for example, the work from Gerard von Honthorst, “Shepherdess Holding Plums” (c.1625).

Cheerleaders (2021) depicts two young cheerleaders women, holding another woman’s leg. Her breast and belly emerge from the overtight cheerleader uniform. Their facial expression is both surprised and humorous. This painting evokes a situation where women are often subordinated by other women, as both of them actually are victims of patriarchal society.

Anne Weyant is also a master of still-life painting. Her still-life paintings, like Buffet (2020) and Godzilla (2022), show the artist’s incredible skill to paint inanimate objects in light-dark color shading to create an illusion of three-dimensional volume on a two-dimensional medium. This technique is called chiaroscuro. Leonardo da Vinci and Caravaggio are famed artists who use chiaroscuro, both to give three-dimensional effect and emotional impact.

In an interview with Autre Magazine, Weyant told the inspiration behind her recent works is that “artifice can’t prevent you from making a complete fool of yourself. Even in a Balenciaga dress, there’s still a chance you might face-plant down a flight of stairs holding a glass of champagne. I guess embarrassment can be a real equalizer in that way.” Weyant’s works demonstrate her capability to present dark humor in feminine, meticulous, and elegant subjects within a painting.

Anna Weyant’s works have proved that she is a rising star in visual art, who mastered both aesthetic techniques and intrinsic emotion of the subject. Her art is promising a bright future in visual art.