Imaginary Ecosystems with Anaïs Lera
Anaïs Lera, is a French visual artist currently living in Vancouver, Canada. Originally from the South of France, she spent her childhood between the mountains and the ocean. As a kid with a passion for biology, she explored her surroundings with a microscope —a playful study that has profoundly shaped my artistic practice.
Can you introduce yourself for those who don’t know you?
I’m Anaïs Lera, visual artist, living in Vancouver but originally from the South of France.
Tell us about the piece you’ve created for the festival.
The piece is a mix between observation and imagination. So it’s inspired by a flower, a native BC flower called White Trillium, and then to create a cool ecosystem I added some minerals, the crystal in the centre, and some animals, those jellyfish and I created this cooler ecosystem.
Do you have another medium that you work in?
Yes, I work with visual art, painting on canvas and pen and paper.
Do you have any advice for emerging muralists?
Be good on paper first, and then go on the wall. And that’s what I did because I started with murals thirty years ago but I wasn’t good at it, in general my designs weren’t very good, so I had to develop my style, develop what I wanted to say, and then I started to get into murals.
How was your visit to Nelson, any favourite memories? [Anaïs laughs] We had a chaotic week!
We had the fire, we had the cougar, we had everything! I love Nelson, woohoo! But yes, I really love Nelson, I really like the vibe of the city.
Do you have any fun places that art has taken you?
The most crazy project that I had was last year, I had a poster commission from NASA. With the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Pasadena, they had a project with NASA on exoplanet research, so I worked with an astrobiologist, which I didn’t know that was a thing, but some people are studying how other planets can potentially have life on it and they asked me to design an imaginary ecosystem, which was a dream project. And I haven’t stopped doing this myself, it has been something that I’ve always wanted to do, and that’s also what I’m doing with this piece. And voilà, it’s all about imaginary ecosystems for me, that’s where my work is.
Do you have any exciting projects that you want people to know about?
Yeah, I’m painting a mural in Sudbury Ontario, starting in ten days, and in Vancouver I also have a very cool project with the City of Surrey, so it’s on the nature centre, and I have a cool piece that’s about the surrounding ecosystem, so I’m very excited about that too.
Interviewer: Gillian Wiley – 2024