We've spent Father’s Day afternoon together chatting about her design, her art, her performances, her ideas, belief, past and present, and a bit of future. She let me into her house and her soul which I would never be grateful enough. She doesn’t only look special, she is special inside. She achieved a lot and she is only twenty-three years old.
She is Anna Kompaniets and this is her story.
Anna
Young, beautiful and very feminine, feminine in every single detail of her appearance... Her extravaganza outfits and jewellery, and crazy, yet amazing, make-up seem to conceal herself, but in fact expresses her real self - what's inside . She doesn’t like permanent changes either with her body, or with her hair. “Every morning when I wake up, I am like a blank canvas”, she says, “so I can create any image I like, change as often as I like. The mask can be more real than reality”.
In 2011 she got married to her now husband, it was when she felt she wanted to have somewhere where she would want to come in the end of the day, and because she believes in love, when they met, she thought he was 'home'. Was she ever in love before? She didn’t need the men, she insists. She used to go on dates quite often.., but it was mainly to drive her inspiration for art. I had a tactic, she says, so I used to go on dates quite often, pretty much always to the same place in Leicester Square. "The personnel may have become suspicious about me", she laughs. But none of the guys passed beyond the second date as by then she would feel like she’d know everything about them, and wasn’t interested anymore.
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Design
She designed dresses and jewellery for the world famous designers - Vivenne Westwood, Alexander McQueen, and Andrew Logan.
She designed dresses and jewellery for the world famous designers - Vivenne Westwood, Alexander McQueen, and Andrew Logan.
“Well, the dress would still be presented under the name of a designer, it doesn’t really belong to you. You are given a frame to design within so the results are sort of predictable. It’s like you walk into this room, and I’d offer you to make a drink, knowing that there is a bottle of tequila, some red wine and beer. I pretty much know what you are likely to come up with, and in the end the drink still belongs to me”.
She appreciated the knowledge she received working with them, and the experience. “But now I am off to do my own DESIGNS”, she says. And she doesn’t want to work for free any more. “It was ok when I was still in the university”.
She wants to do well financially, but she is happy with what she has now. “People shall be happy with what they’ve got. It’s only if you’ve got cancer, you shall be concerned”.
She’s got the job which pays the bills – selling shoes at United Nude. “I’m grateful to them for letting me dress up the way I want. I also like their shoes”. She also earns money by doing freelance face painting and embroidery.
There are no images in her studio, as she feels that they distract her and in some way influence what she designs. She thinks that having images can make the mind copy something. "Inspiration must not be ''plagiarism'. So she prefers to keep bare walls.
Ideas
Art shall be available and comprehensible for everyone and everyone shall get something out of art – what? – something to get them thinking and get them to make a change in their lives and the life of people around them for better. Art is like religion, like a political system. It's about changing things without war or atomic bombs, it's about making people dream and make their dreams reality.
Hair
She used to have really long hair, but once after watching films about Coco Chanel, she felt like cutting them at 3am with the fabric scissors. She cut them quite short and felt ‘free’ and ‘different’ for the first three days, and after she started feeling a bit sorry. Many famous women cut their hair, and she referenced Frida Kahlo, so she ought to do it to find out how she’d feel.
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Performance art – Akleriah
She speaks with great respect and passion about friend, co-founder of AKLERIAH and choreographer - Lenka Johanna-Marie – a fabulous Czech artist – they’ve met ever since they’ve met in Goldsmith’s.
She graduated with 2:2 from Goldsmith’s. It felt like my art was too ‘beautiful’ for them. They tried to fit her in the standard frame of art educational system, and her productivity dropped. However she enjoyed the time spent there as she met amazing people, other artists and whose who became her friends.
Just before her graduation from Goldsmith’s her, Lenka Johanna-Marie and some other people of Akleriah performed in Tate Britain with The Supreme Conspiracy of Akleriah. “When I received my diploma, I nearly laughed”, that’s how ridiculous it felt to receive those marks.
Politics
When I emailed her asking if she’d like me to do a post about her, she asked what it would be about. “About you, your art, your vision, your thoughts, ideas, political views if you have any”, I responded. I added ‘political views’ as a joke, rather than a serious comment, but it appears that Anna does have political views. In fact she was politically active when at her 1st and 2nd year of the university. She even designed the dress which she wore when protesting against the war in Iraq. But then she realised that other protesters, particularly girls, didn’t like her. “I think, they judged me by my appearance, and the way I dress. They must have thought I wasn’t serious enough. I also realised that the protests were very inconvenient for other people”. So she stopped protesting on the streets, coming to the understanding that she could express her disagreement and protest against things she could not accept through her art and performance.
Religion
In the age of nine she sang in the church choir and even had thoughts of becoming a nun. But then she became disillusioned with the constitution of church, and became an atheist. At the same time she designed a dress for her own funerals. The prints on the dress are the declaration of love to all existing gods and ancient ones including Satan. “In case I meet them at the gates to the heaven”, she says "or if I get to the VIP room in hell, as if there is hell, for sure it's going to be corrupt more than any third world country".
At 21 she created her own religion – sheepology after studying many other religions and cults scientology, satanism and raelism (Anna performance at Snog Marry Avoid starts at the fourth minutes here).
Quotes
"The purpose of the artist-designer is to invent, not to copy"
"Death is the most interesting event in a life of a human being"
"I wanted to design children's clothes, but my designs were a bit scary for children"
"By creating a religion, humans are simply trying to make them life more difficult, creating boundaries, borders, reasons to argue and be unhappy"
“Look, there are so many people around, who say that they are not happy, but don’t do anything about it. If you are repressed, it’s only because you’ve done nothing about it”
“ - Are you competitive?
- I like to win. It gives me that very amazing feeling, that you are capable to do everything.
- So other people’s opinions matter to you..?! You create for people, rather than for yourself?
- If I’d live on a dessert island, I’d still create... I would only have come up with slightly different things”
p.s. For the gallery of Anna's works, please browse here
