Who are you?
Rosanna (Zan) Dean. I’ve recently realised I am a painter first and foremost. I’m a creation of my fascination in – and distrust of – the contemporary mind and spirit. I search for wonder and look to myths and fairytales as a way to organise and understand my experiences.
Where are you from?
Born in Brighton to a very musical dad and a Polish art-teaching mum and I had the most amazing creative and sensitive brother. Im from them, and the way they raised me around books and music and to ask questions. We very much did things our own way and were a bit of a dysfunctional magical unit. I think that’s what’s made me.
What do you do?
Behind what might seemingly conform to a harmonious and pleasing aesthetic I acknowledge the beauty present in all of life’s facets, even, and perhaps especially in those with which we may shy away from. My work is full of minute, laboured detail and often involves a history of many images layered one over another. I try to provoke recognition of the unrestricted elements of an image; things are very rarely what they at first seem. I try to combat that tendency to neglect one’s true and basic self and thus to question what is beautiful… in turn I attempt to gain control over the chaos.
At the moment I’m painting mostly in oils on a large scale, I also photograph my friends a lot, be it for their musical projects or as a starting point or reference for my own work. I occasionally dabble in video and animation. I’ve also a few freelance graphic/illustration jobs and have started my own eco clothing line with my artwork. I read as much as I can and am really influenced by mythology and the romantics. I also play music and write as often as I can, as all these things feed each other and my art is a collage of them all.
Your style in 3 words?
Quixotic, Layered, Unsettling,
What is your weakness?
Over thinking
What is your strength?
A desire to consume and be consumed.
What makes you different?
I feel like I have to paint my life into existence. Although we are all unique – as a collection of our experiences, we are also all the same. I think we’d be better off acknowledging that. But I try to fight against an overriding push and shove I feel from those telling us that we can only exist through televised experiences. I work in a realistic style of painting but use this to explore what reality is to me, I guess my work is a desire to communicate how I see the world. Realism as a victim of my imagination, anxieties and a chaotic hunger for learning while knowing that beauty can be found everywhere.
By Cosima Bucarelli
