Meet the artist
Anna Jane Neshyba (they/them) is an artist and teacher based in Olympia, Washington. Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, they originally drew inspiration from the lush, misty landscape. Like so many in the PNW, they find the sprawling forests to be deeply magical and wondrous.
However, in 2019, on a hike along the Oregon coast, they noticed a slight twinge in their back. The twinges grew in severity, and frequency: throughout their knees, hips, shoulders, and ankles. They suffered injury after injury, and the pain in their back was unrelenting and widespread. After years of tackling this chronic pain, hounding medical professionals, and haggling with insurance companies, they were diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome in 2022.
Once an avid hiker and nature enthusiast, they have had to find other ways to engage with nature, after the loss of much mobility. They have had to come to terms with constant change, and the grief that accompanies chronic illness. They mourn for their body, and fear the inevitable arrival of new symptoms. But they also find incredible beauty, and solidarity in the disabled community: that we have the audacity to live, to be joyous, and to make art in a society still largely riddled with eugenics rhetoric and policies.
This grief, horror, and resistance is present in their artwork; art helps them find goodness in their body again. They use both traditional, and not-so-traditional mediums to create unique works that engage with the natural and digital world, their body, and their pain. They are interested in aesthetics that are mythological and dreamlike.
The majority of their portfolio is made with plain ol’ pen and paper, however, they are currently transitioning to digital art, finding the combination of illustration and collage to be their current obsession. They have additionally dabbled in virtual reality (VR), using their computer science background to create virtual installations.
Their work has been published in The Mill, Willamette University’s literary and arts journal, and they have collaborated with the Hallie Ford Museum of Art to create VR exhibits for their thesis. You can currently find prints of their artwork available for sale on the store page.
