MY STORY

Where are you from?

I'm Kiri Megan Anderson, an artist and creative soul. I was born and raised - by Jamaican parents - in England, and now live in the vibrant city of Paris. 

What did you study?

I studied History of Art at the University of York and completed a professional diploma with the Victoria and Albert Museum in London after I graduated. I’ve worked in the arts and cultural sector across the UK and France for almost 15 years.

Why Paris? 

Paris has so much creative stimulus everywhere you turn: breath-taking architecture, buzzing terrace culture, a beautiful language, world-renowned cuisine, cultural diversity...all of these elements feed into my creative practice. There’s an abundance of things happening in this city and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m a city girl at heart.

What message do you want to convey in your art?

Strength, celebration, fight...I think there are many different things that you can take from my art and I love the fact that it’s not the same for everyone. Whether they’re fluid and calligraphic or bold and stylised, the element that binds my paintings together is a fearlessness to assert themselves.

I’m constantly revisiting and reimagining ideas surrounding the female nude.

What materials do you use?

My main materials are acrylic paint, ink and gold leaf. I want vibrant, strong colours to bounce back the “gaze” through shields of colour and glinting reflections.

Why paint bodies? Especially women?

The image of the human body is a universal language. We all have them, we all know them, we all come from them. I probe into what it means to be a child of migrant parents, a person of colour, now an expat living in a foreign country...how the world tries to claim us, and how we resist. There is a strong biographical element to my art.

What’s your creative process?

I abstract the female form into stylised, striking and often colourful poses.

I get a lot of inspiration from old photographic archives and spend days looking for poses that stand out to me. I often start with detailed studies in my sketchbook and gradually simplify them into what I believe is their expressive “essence”.

There’s a sense of community across my collections, and I often work on 10 to 30 paintings at once. I’m constantly assessing the paintings next to each other and finding subtle ways to make them “speak” to each other through colour, patterns and finer details.

Where do you get your inspiration to use colours?

Colour theory and psychology are a big influence. The impact colour has on people's moods, feelings and behaviours is remarkable and I’ve recently been reseraching “dopamine dressing”, as an example. I keep a colour wheel next to me when I’m painting in the studio. I’m always striving to achieve visual harmony in my works.

What are your future projects?

At the moment I’m focusing on launching my handpainted candles shop BRAVE AND BOUGIE and I’m really excited to see where that takes me.

How would your friends describe you?

Strong-willed and passionate about art!