Anna Chromy was born in Bohemia and studied in Paris, France at the Académie de la Grande Chaumiere with Maurice Mejaz, former director of the Académie of Beaux-Arts in Caracas. She has exhibited at the Venice Biennale and in many art galleries in Europe, such as the Salon du Printemps in Paris and the Syra Gallery in Barcelona.
Chromy says of his art:
“I really enjoy the elaborate baroque style of my homeland, which I try to show through the poetic setting and the sublimation of realism in my paintings. I choose as subjects living beings, including animals, rather than inanimate or abstract entities that are often they just tend to add to a lot of our latent doubts and curiosities. The head of a horse, cat or dog can easily expose as much about our emotions as that of a human being.”
his paint ‘Tangle’ it presents the beliefs of the artist with its intermingled baroque composition aided by the erotic appearance of bodies enjoying the antics of love and dance. The seductive quality of the work is noted in the undulating figures that are both real and imagined. The activity of the lovers gives way to the perspective of their performance in a mutually cerebral and personal marriage. His dance becomes a physical 4 dance instead of just a pas-de-deux. Surrounding these figures, Chromy has created a womb-like setting that encompasses these forms in a textural life of light and shadow.
Chromy’s art examines ideas from natural beauty and compassion to the deepest part of our subconscious spirit. ‘To be or not to be’ it is a journey through the absolute depths of our anguish and our dreams of death. The nude figure of a woman lies diagonally across the image, her face turned toward us. Next to her is a figure in a heavy robe, sitting pensively, whose face is imperceptible in the deep shadows. He or she feels simultaneously existing and missing, overseeing the woman’s fate but inaccessible. Behind him float the walls of a building, religious in his bristling presence. As a result of Chromy’s unique style of coating fresh paint on canvas, visions of floating faces and entities can be discovered in every part of the painting; these types of visions can be interpreted by the audience in their unique individual way. He has transcended the sensual with the fearful, the recognized with the unknown, insofar as he has achieved a steadiness and calmness in the entire thematic theme and its meaning.
His art challenges but will never dictate; seduces but does not envelop. Styles are carefully presented to risk interpretation. The artist never imposes a meaning on the viewer; alternatively, she allows us to enter into the joy of his creations and ideas and make that world our own. Chromy injects life and movement into inanimate objects, and the creatures often seem to take on human sentiments, as in the horses that roam freely through his art, contained in both action and intensity of expression.
‘Paris on stage’ it challenges us to embark on a symbolic journey through the entirety of our subconscious. The haunting dreamlike quality of him is further enhanced by his technique of adding image upon image. The torso of a girl that dominates the left side of the canvas appears to be vividly alive and yet strangely exposed, like Greco-Roman sculpture. Behind her gallops a riderless horse, similar to Magritte’s ‘Lost Rider’ on his dream ride. Below is the metropolis of Paris, looking similar to the ancient home of the gods, while in front an abstract image floats like the fluid imagination and dreams of the subconscious.
Familiar themes such as man and woman, conception and death are interwoven throughout Chromy’s work, yet he depicts his subjects in unusual and subtle ways.
cromy says:
“Celebrations are like dreams, occasions of total liberation. Appearing in disguise represents for me a creative act through which I can slip into another dimension, transforming space and time. This is how we can appear in different forms as diverse and iridescent as our innermost feelings without having to reveal ourselves to others”.
Anna Chromy does not make rough drawings for her paintings. They come in an instant from the spiritual sincerity of her art. Her technique has a grittiness, a raw beauty that cannot be achieved by overpolishing and reworking a piece.
Chromy’s own perspective of his art is similar to that of other visionary or surrealist artists in his desire to share his distinctive world with the viewer. “Every human being should therefore analyze my images as if they affected his inner thoughts and not try to study me through my images. Seeing produces an inner expression whose awakening of the conscious self distinguishes man from other creatures.”