Anna Rocke's paintings explore interior architectural spaces, from domestic rooms to more theatrical, historic environments. These are spaces we inhabit or pass through, yet often overlook. Within her painting process, small details accumulate meaning and the familiar slips into the surreal. By thickening oil paint with beeswax and ground marble, she creates heavily impastoed surfaces that warp perspective and give the work a sculptural presence. The final painting suggests a space that is both intimately familiar and psychologically charged.

Rocke (b. 1997) is a British painter based in London. She studied Painting at Edinburgh College of Art (2019). Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at Arusha Gallery (London, New York, Edinburgh, Bruton), Salon 21(New York), and DOOR Creative Studio (Netherlands). She is a recipient of the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant (2024).

About the work Visitors
“I often think about interiors as psychological spaces, shaped by layered histories and the sense of presence left behind by the people who have lived there before. Animals come up a lot in my work for similar reasons, they often act as imagined presences or companions within these spaces and I’m drawn to the way they sit somewhere between the familiar and the symbolic.”

Anna Rocke