38 Artists&Illustrators
IN THE STUDIOAnia Hobson
With a BP Portrait Award before her 30th birthday, this young Suffolk artist
has already created a distinctive style of her own, as STEVE PILL discoversT
he studio has been a second
home for Ania Hobson of late.
The talented young portrait
painter is currently preparing for her
first London solo exhibition and the
deadline is looming. “I’ve been in here
pretty much all week, from 8am to
5pm, and I’ll be standing all day,”
she says. “It’s really intense, I think
I’ve made myself ill a few times.”
Of course, you’d never tell from
the bright, breezy way in which Aniarecounts all of this. If she is stressed,
it doesn’t show. She works at Asylum
Studios in Suffolk, a co-operative
based at the former RAF Bentwaters.
Her own space is tidy, high-ceilinged
and filled with plants. “I love the space
so much, I just want to make it like my
home because I spend a lot of time
there. It’s the one place where I’ll go
even if I’m not doing much painting,
and I’ll relax there. It’s nice to look at
your own work and take it all in.”The downside to being bound to
the studio seven days a week, she
says, is that it makes it harder to
come up with ideas for new paintings.
“You almost hit a point where you
get... Not a painter’s block, but you
need to feel things and experience
things, so it is really good to take a
step back, go outside. You don’t even
have to be researching, it could just
be going for a walk or seeing your
friends and new ideas will pop up.”CLOCKWISE FROM
ABOVE Ania in the
studio; A Portrait
of Two Female
Painters, oil
on canvas,
160x120cm; Not
Your Perfect Blonde,
oil on canvas,
120x170cm