Anna McNeil’s work draws from lived experience, exploring human relationships through themes of intimacy, communication, identity, and implicit memory. Using mnemonic imagery and found visual references, she plays with a language that sits between figuration and abstraction, harnessing suggestion to invite the viewer into a dialogue with the painting.
Born in Scotland, she grew up across the UK and Europe before moving to Barcelona in 2007, where she is now based. She graduated with a BA in Fine Art from Bath in 2002 and continued her studies under painter Varda Caivano at the Salzburg Academy in 2015 and 2016. She later joined the Turps Studio programme in London from 2016 to 2017, followed by its Correspondence course from 2020 to 2021.
Dividing her time between studios in Barcelona and London, she has exhibited widely across the UK and Europe, including with Arusha Gallery in Edinburgh, and has taken part in numerous art fairs and festivals. Her work was awarded the Jackson’s Art Prize for figurative painting in 2021, and she was a finalist for the Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize in the UK in 2017. Her works are held in both private and public collections.