Artist profile
Anja
Oberlander Purcell
Anja Oberlander Purcell (b. 2004) is an emerging contemporary Australian artist residing and working in Eora/Sydney. She works primarily in oil painting and completed Bachelor of Fine Arts with National Art School in 2025.
Anja is guided by an interest in non-descript composition and curiousness of space, her practice seeks to evoke both the familiar and foreign within the viewer, in turn igniting a politics of reception. For Anja, a painting is always frozen in its own moment in time, and it is through filling space with remixed objects and forms, where conversations between people and place occurs.
Artist Career Highlights
- National Art School BFA Graduate 2025
- 4 week internship at Cassandra Bird Gallery Potts Point
- Glebe Art Show 2025
Artist Interview
How does your artwork get from initial concept to exhibition stage?
I source imagery from the past and present, impersonal and personal. Working primarily with interiors as a base, I then works through a process of collage - pasting, painting and drawing into the work until ultimately deciding upon a composition of anecdotal realities featuring dream-like interiors, strange figures and unorthodox perspectives. I end up translating this image onto canvas where, as the painting develops, I take more and more creative agency - letting the space of the canvas guide the final composition.
Tell us a bit about your story and how you came to be an artist
I began my creative journey at a young age with the aid and mentoring of my primary school art teacher. Taking up oil painting classes throughout high school, I found a love for painting that ended up influencing me to apply for National Art School in 2023. Upon graduating, I've built upon my skills and continue to develop my practice as it stands today.
