Anki King

Born in Norway / Works in New York, NY

BIO

Anki King grew up in a small village in Norway. After completing her arts education in Oslo, she moved to New York City in 1994. King exhibits frequently both in Europe and in the United States. Her work is included in private and public collections including the Appleton Museum of Art, in Ocala, FL. King has also exhibited at the Katonah Museum of Art, NY, the Las Cruces Museum of Art, NM, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Tokyo. In 2010 she was the winner of the Artist of the Year Award in the London International Creative Competition (LICC). She was recently featured in the book Kunstnerliv (Artist Life), a collection of 19 Norwegian contemporary artists. She is also featured in the documentary Artists in NYC, featured on PBS.

My process is organic and unplanned. There are no narratives or verbal ideas, I simply start adding paint to a random sized canvas or paper pinned to my wall and as I work, figures will appear. The figures act as symbols for feelings that can't accurately be described in words. They are often characterized by the object symbols with which they share space. Each figure, or fragment of a figure, stands still in readiness for a charged meeting with the viewer. The viewing activates a series of responses, where identity is projected onto the faceless figure, similar to a reflection that offers the gazer another view of themselves. This frees the narrative from being contained within the subject matter of the artwork and allows it to exist in the viewing space.