Looking inside oneself

U of G student Anna Syme uses art to reflect on her own body and mind

ALEXANDER BRADSHAW

Creativity works in mysterious ways. As for University of Guelph student Anna Syme, her work has been taken to a new level by looking into herself with her series titled Contrast to Connection. Through this series, Syme illustrates the difficulties of introspection, and how crucial it is to embrace your genuine feelings, instead of covering things up with a mask.

Syme draws, paints as well as takes photos, and draws inspiration from Salvador Dali’s art, with a definite influence from the Dada and Expressionism movements. Anna’s art has a way of turning abstract views into something that people can connect to despite how nonsensical the piece may be. As she grew up, Syme’s parents taught her a lesson about the importance of listening to one’s own body and mind, and that the best way to fascinate an audience is to connect with them.

Art is made to express one’s raw and honest feelings, but the real magic is how the audience connects with it. Things change as more people relate and see themselves or their lives in the piece in front of them.

Anna creates pieces that show loss, growth, and understanding, things she relates to from past experiences. Her art looks for a community that associates their explorations of themselves and as a queer woman.

She wants to share her struggles of finding her own identity, while becoming more authentic in the process. They convey real emotions of hardship that highlight their beliefs, which can be seen throughout their work.

Despite being a full-time student at the University of Guelph and studying studio art just like their father, Anna spends their summers away in Nova Scotia working as an artist. Leaving Ontario when the summers get too hot to go back to Annapolis Valley, she says the distance is manageable, but that doesn’t stop her from feeling homesick as the semester ends.

Being away from home for the first time, however, gave her the opportunity she needed to recreate herself. There is comfort for her back home, yet the distance allows her to separate school and work.

In Contrast to Connection, Syme’s newest project, shows her struggle of finding who she is. It explores the connection between what she desires versus what is healthy. It is here where she learns to embrace parts of herself that had been neglected in the past, whereas now those parts can show the importance of self-love over the validation of others.

The series reveals the questions and answers they had been spent so long searching for, where the judgment was there now stands worth. Syme said the recurring theme of blur and faces emerging from the surroundings expresses her internal split and intense state of constant self-interrogation to the point of overwhelming confusion.

Humans are a complex compilation of our own experiences

Artwork from Syme's Contrast to Connection exhibit.

Art by Anna Syme 2nd year student, Studio Art

and emotions that help shape us to be who we are. Anna Syme’s art shows that complicated understanding by showing firsthand that they have gone through similar issues. Her talent speaks for itself, and her potential seems to have no roof either.