Anya Gudimova: Embracing Femininity
Anya Gudimova’s paintings exist in a delicate balance between beauty and darkness, reality and dream. Born near the Black Sea in Eastern Europe and later raised in Alaska, she draws inspiration from these contrasting landscapes, weaving their influence into her work. Her art explores themes of intimacy, vulnerability, and desire through a distinctly feminine lens, capturing quiet, suspended moments that feel both personal and universal.
How did your creative journey begin?
My background is actually in piano. I was enrolled in music school at the age of five and performed until I was eighteen. Piano consumed most of my days—before competitions, I practiced up to eight hours a day. Piano was my creative outlet, but more than that, it was a way for me to enter another world. As I played, I would close my eyes and imagine various scenarios unfolding with the music.
Over time, I realized I wanted to express these thoughts in a more tangible way. I have always sketched and painted on my own time, but after about a year into college, I decided to take it more seriously and fully pursue visual art. My transition felt natural because music has always had a visual quality for me. In many ways, my art is just an extension of the music I once performed, a way to translate what I feel into something others can see. Painting allows me to bring these imagined worlds to life, making them visible rather than internal.
Your work blurs the boundaries between reality and the surreal. What draws you to this approach, and how do you balance these elements in your compositions?
I have always been a huge day dreamer. There was a period of my childhood that my life was a bit unstable. My mom and I moved around a lot, i was home by myself more often than not and that time alone led my mind wander. I used art to escape.
In my paintings, I try to balance what I know while adding a touch of the imaginary, depending on what I want to explore or communicate. I want my work to feel like a suspended moment—rooted in reality but softened by memory, longing, or something just beyond reach.
You often explore themes of intimacy and desire through the lens of femininity. How has your personal experience influenced these themes in your work?
I grew up in a female-dominated household and in a country where the female experience was deeply rooted in tradition. I’ve seen both the soft and hard sides of femininity. I helped my grandma in the fields, hunched over under the sun for hours digging up potatoes. I would also watch my aunt spend hours in front of the mirror getting ready for a night out with her friends. She would put on her mini skirt and heels, carefully outlining her lips while I was next to her copying her every move. Other nights were spent picking herbs and various flowers to make medicinal tea, a quiet summer ritual of care and tradition.
I especially loved watching my mom. When we moved to America, she was a single mother working long hours to build a career for herself, yet she always took care of herself. I admired the beauty products she used, the clothes she wore. She was always stylish, always composed. Despite this, I’ve struggled with my own femininity. Growing up, and even now, conflicting expectations of what a woman should be make it easy to feel lost in it all. Art has been my way of working through that, helping me define femininity for myself rather than through the lens of others. For me, femininity is deeply tied to intimacy and desire—not just in how they are experienced and perceived, but in the tension between them. Desire is often shaped by what we want, while intimacy is about what we allow ourselves to share, the softness and vulnerability that come with it. There’s a tension between softness and power, vulnerability and control. Stereotypes are often seen as negative, and “ultra-feminine” imagery has, in many ways, been dismissed or diminished. But I’m learning to embrace femininity on my own terms, even against the never-ending discourse surrounding it.
What does a typical day in the studio look like for you, and how has your art practice grown or changed?
Lately, I’ve been experimenting with different mediums—right now, I’m starting to dabble in oil pastels and loving them. The texture and fluidity really work for me. I use oils and watercolors to paint quick, smaller ideas for one-off pieces, but for my oil paintings, I like to plan ahead. I usually map out my next 5–7 paintings, making color swatches and sketches before starting. Once I’m satisfied with how they look, I begin painting. My studio days now are just paint when I can. I’m not at the point where I can live off my art, so with a full-time job, most of my painting happens after 7 p.m. Ideally, though, my favorite time to paint is in the dark—especially the early morning. There is something magical that happens when most of the world is quiet, and then you get to see the sun rise and it always just makes me feel so happy-feels like a new day, new possibilities.
Which experiences have impacted your work as an artist?
I wouldn’t say any single experience has influenced me more than another—it’s the accumulation of them all that shapes how I perceive myself and express that on the canvas. Although my work is deeply personal, it’s also shaped by external forces—social media, the women around me, even a recent film I’ve watched. These influences become a lens through which I explore the known aspects of myself, navigating ideas of beauty, identity, and self-discovery. In many ways, my work is an act of gazing inward..
One important experience to me is definitely my move to America. I come from a small town, a place where I would have never even thought to dream. Now I see so many artists who I look up to live out theirs, I’m inspired to know I could get there too.
How has social media impacted your work?
Social media has had a huge impact on me. I never saw it as just a way to stay connected with friends and family—it’s always been an outlet for self-expression. Tumblr and Pinterest, in particular, were incredibly influential and I’m sure other girls can say the same. Like so many others, I was caught in the endless cycle of sharing and consuming images, shaping my visual world through what I found online and It is still the same for me today.
People often criticize social media for being fake, or performative but to me, that’s the point. We’re all performing in some way, whether we realize it or not. The way we dress, the way we speak—it’s all a form of presentation. Social media just makes the stage bigger.
Your imagery feels cinematic, almost like stills from a dream. Are there specific artists, films, or literary works that have influenced your visual storytelling
I do think of my paintings in a very photographic way and something I want to lean into even more. I was into photography for a few years—I loved setting up shots and creating narratives that way. Painting feels similar to me; I’m creating snapshots, freezing a moment in time. Even the way I use light often mimics flash photography rather than natural light. It’s a way to emphasize storytelling, to make it clear that this is a staged moment—a performance as much as a paused reality. As far as inspiration goes, overall I love a darker story whether it be a book or movie. One of my favorite movies is the Black Swan. It’s twisted, and the transformation at its core has always resonated with me. The idea of having to embrace the darker parts within, and kill off a version of yourself to bring out something more powerful is something I relate to—learning to let go enough to allow other parts of myself to come through. As far as artists go I’m not alone to say Lisa Yuskavage has been my biggest inspiration for as long as I can remember. Both her narratives and visual choices are brilliant. I definitely look up to her as an artist.
IG: @anyagudimova
Published on April 3, 2025