Beauty and a Beat

Deep in a mountainous valley a single song plays over and over as a spellbound creative moves to its hypnotic beat.


A broken record would be a welcome tool for digital artist, Anna Majboroda, who chooses one song to inspire her throughout each piece of art she creates. While listening to the same tune for 20 to 30 hours would drive many to insanity, the Masterton based artist falls into a sea of rhythm that helps her through her creative journey.
“As soon as I hear a song I can tell whether there is a picture in it; whether it's the tool I need to work with,” Anna explains. “I can't even express how much I love music. It has a very deep effect on me like vibration as medicine. Without the music there would be no pictures. The music can be old or new, it just has to be the right vehicle. It's the song that builds the momentum. It puts me back on the road to where I've been… where I retrieve my story from.”
As a teenager in the 80s in the somewhat uneventful town of Masterton, Anna left school when she was 15, went flatting (much to her mother’s horror) and got her first boyfriend.
“I hung out in a group of 80s punks and anarchists and I can honestly say it was the most hopeful time of my life. We were all 10 feet tall and bulletproof with dreams of being artists, writers, you name it. It was one of the best times of my life.”
After leaving school, the anarchist (or so she was called in her day) travelled throughout the United Kingdom and Europe only to return to Masterton and marry at age 19.
Today, the mother of six hides deep in a mountainous valley keeping to herself and developing her art in solitude.
”I am not satisfied with the aesthetics of reality, so I choose to create my own,” she explains.
Once the traditional painter discovered digital art and the fact that it allowed for numerous horrendous mistakes to be made and fixed by the mere click of buttons, she was converted.

“I also switched to digital because of space. At that time I had a full working studio and then I had another baby. I was drawn to the idea of sitting on a computer and being able to get up and down to tend to the baby without worrying about paints all over the place.”
Surprisingly the digital artist does not use Photoshop; a common tool for many in her field. “I don’t like the idea of pushing a button and having the computer make its interpretation on my art. I’d much rather do it manually. I use an archaic programme called Coral Paint ProX 4.”
Anna is currently in the process of setting up another studio and in 2013 she will be mixing the mediums of digital art with traditional painting
“The last few years I’ve been stuck in a rut sitting at the computer. I miss the physical aspects of traditional work. What drew me to the computer at the start is compelling – does she mean the opposite? me now.”
She also plans to venture into animation. Anna is always pushing boundaries with her art.
”I will work until I have enough money to fill my cave with vintage Louis Vuitton steamer trunks, then I'll curl up inside one and sleep.”
 
Anna’s loves:
Vikings and Viking history
Northern Lights
Iceland (one place I've never been that I am completely obsessed with travelling to. It MUST happen soon)
Medieval art
Van Eyck
The House of Faberge
Romanov Dynasty
Christian Dior
The Golden Age of Couture
Dollhouses