Anna Deller-Yee
Anna Deller-Yee moves fluidly between painting, fashion and installation, creating a visual language where materiality, gesture and emotion become inseparable.
Her work explores vulnerability, identity and the human touch, balancing softness and strength through richly layered surfaces and an instinctive use of colour.
Born in Chicago and raised in Germany, Deller-Yee studied fashion at the London College of Fashion before completing her MA at the Royal College of Art in 2021. Her interdisciplinary practice has since developed across art and fashion, including collaborations with Marni, Nike, Schiaparelli and Mugler.
SM: You work across art, fashion and installation. Have you always seen them as one language, or did they become one over time?
I think, instinctively, I have always understood them as one language, even before I had the words to explain it. Painting, textiles, clothing, objects and spaces have never felt separate to me.
They are different bodies through which an inner world can take form.
Over time, I have become more conscious of this connection. What links everything is the hand, the gesture, the trace of emotion and the desire to build a world rather than simply make an object.
A painting can become a landscape, a garment can become a moving surface, an installation can become a kind of emotional architecture. For me, they all speak to each other.
SM: Every project has a different starting point. What usually comes first for you: an image, a feeling, or a material?
Most often, it begins with a feeling.
Something quite abstract at first: a mood, a memory, a tension, sometimes even a physical sensation. From there, I begin to search for the image or material that can carry it.
Material is very important to me because it often changes the direction of the work. Fabric, paint, embroidery, texture; they all hold different energies. I like when a material resists a little, when it asks for time. That is usually where the most interesting things begin to happen.
SM: What keeps you curious as an artist?
I think curiosity comes from not wanting to define things too quickly. I am interested in the space between disciplines, but also between softness and strength, beauty and discomfort, intimacy and scale.
Human encounters keep me curious too: conversations, exchanges and the unexpected connections that happen with people along the way. Research is also an important part of my practice; spending time in libraries, archives and institutes keeps opening new doors and perspectives for me.
I am inspired by discovering new places, by moving between being grounded and allowing myself to lift off for a momen; to step outside the familiar and remain open, attentive and awake.
SM: What is your Muse?
My muse is a feeling I keep returning to: something feminine, powerful, tender and alive.
It is not one person or one image, but more like an atmosphere.
Shaped by memory, nature, music, longing, sensuality and the emotional intelligence of the body.
