South Dakota, USA
2010 / 2021
Anna Youngers returned to Il Palmerino after exactly eleven years. It was an emblematic return, as she found herself coming 'full circle' as far as her artistic career was concerned. As Anna reminded us in a presentation she gave for Il Palmerino's live-in community, she began her training as an academic artist with a profound knowledge of the technique of drawing, light and form. She would later strive to perfect colour and oil techniques, in the best figurative traditions of the past, passed down among masters, whether dating back to the Italian Renaissance or reflecting Northern European trends, as with the Flemish painters.
The knowledge she acquired in school has proved a starting point in the quest for her own voice. Her art-based journey contemplates the epochal passages that have occurred in Art History, from the past until now; this is her greatest challenge. She cultivates the desire to return to form and colour as her primary form of perception, and this goal is further enriched when the decisive impact of movement is involved.
This area of study is what most fascinates her currently, independent of whether she is dealing with figurative or abstract art – or other artistic languages. Undoubtedly, the search for communicative sincerity is important to Anna, in order to avoid getting trapped inside a creative cliché. At Il Palmerino she has found the opportunity to put herself to the test, as she faces a new period in her life, both as an artist and as a person. Anna is at ease communicating this idea to others, feeling less isolated at Il Palmerino, than in her native South Dakota.
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