Anne Athena Aarhus, Denmark, b. 1984

Anne Athena (Anne Lykke) was born in Aarhus, Denmark in 1984. Her work focuses primarily on spirituality, psychology and the patterns of human behaviour that define our “collective unconscious” (Carl Jung, The Structure of the Unconscious, 1916). With a lucid aesthetic, Athena paints scenes drawn from her own imagination, using symbolism and surrealism to tell the story of her own life. Her improvisational approach is consistent with her interest in the “unconscious”. For Athena, this process captures something truer to the human experience than might otherwise be expressed with a more precise approach.

Athena’s masterful understanding of ceramics allows her to explore concepts that are only possible with a three dimensional medium. Unlike a flat surface which, in an instant, reveals all its narrative elements, Athena’s ceramics disclose their stories gradually as we move around them. There is a sense of story, then, and we anticipate the turning of her work in much the same way we would the plot of a book or the final scene of a film.

Athena holds a BA in Ceramics from The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (2014) and a MA of Ceramics from the Royal College of Art (2019). Her work is held in collections worldwide.