Sara Anstis primarily works with pastels on paper to render dreamlike tableaux. Using the hazy nature of pastels to her advantage, Anstis draws inspiration from art history, mythology, and folklore to softly bring recognisable narratives and figures into view. The women she depicts could have been plucked from Botticelli paintings, their classical beauty delivered in an Early Renaissance painterly style. Doting mythological creatures embrace these ethereal figures, with petals and other fauna surrounding them. All of these components seem to be shuffled from different tales or eras, rebound in a new realm cultivated by Anstis. In her own words, her practice ‘dwells in half-narratives’, there’s both comfort and a sense of unease in her oeuvre. Each work pulls the viewer in and disrupts what you may have initially expected, characters are mixed up and re-appear across different drawings. In this way, the stories spun by Anstis complicate fables or art historical narratives you may have previously been told. The artist will sometimes also add an additional layer of line drawings on top of the pastel surface, weaving in characters and figures in a more distinct register. This blending of visual styles furthers the destabilising quality established in Anstis’s practice, while each piece remains utterly enrapturing to the eye.
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