Anna Maria Almqvist Romanus
My practice is grounded in drawing and extends into oil painting and printmaking, where material behaviour informs rhythm, tone, and intention. The work moves between the familiar and the unsettling, guided by the belief that I paint not what I see, but what I saw. I work with the human figure, focusing on gesture and the psychological questions that emerge through sustained observation.
My work examines the subjective nature of psychological experience and how inner states are formed, contradicted, and embodied differently from one body to another. I aim to articulate this without narrative or explanation, allowing ambiguity to remain and the viewer’s perception to complete the image. Movement, posture, and mark become carriers of both vulnerability and restraint.
Drawing underpins all aspects of my practice and informs my approach to painting, which has become increasingly slow as I pursue technical depth and a less predictable palette. Printmaking functions as a necessary interruption to this process. Through monoprinting and woodcut, I work quickly and intuitively, producing sequences of images in which reversal, pressure, and chance disrupt control. Carving extends the drawn line into resistance, weight, and physical commitment.
Within a contemporary context, I align with artists such as Marlene Dumas and Paula Rego, whose figurative practices sustain psychological intensity and ambiguity without resolving meaning. Alongside influences including C.F. Hill, Edvard Munch, and Jon Fosse, their work reinforces my interest in economy of expression and the figure as a site where perception, memory, and emotion intersect
Stack II
Stack II brings together stacked and compressed bodies held in an unstable balance. Some figures appear to support each other while others seem trapped under weight and pressure. The painting moves between tenderness and discomfort, exhaustion and care.
The red surface creates a dense and psychological space where the bodies merge together and lose clear boundaries. Their simplified forms and repeated positions create a rhythm that feels both physical and emotional.
The work is concerned with closeness, dependency and the tension of carrying or being carried. The stacked figures become a shared structure shaped through contact, weight and emotional accumulation.
2026, Oil on panel, 185 × 95 cm each
Stack I
Stack I considers the human figure as a collective
form. Bodies are layered horizontally into a
vertical accumulation, creating compression
rather than movement.
Faces are simplified and mask-like, and
individual identities dissolve into a shared mass.
Through repetition and restraint, the work reflects
on vulnerability, dependency and shared
psychological presence.
2025, Oil on glueprimed linen canvas, 185 x 95 cm
Suspension
Suspension depicts two elongated figures held in a precarious state between grounding and release. Their bodies appear stretched by an invisible force, creating a tension between weight and lightness, presence and disappearance.
The work focuses on the unstable energy that can exist between people. The figures stand apart yet remain psychologically connected through posture, repetition and imbalance. Their distorted forms suggest emotional strain, dependency and silent negotiation.
2026, mono print on paper
View
View developed from a drawing in one of my sketchbooks. The elongated horizontal format comes directly from the proportions of the sketchbook page and shapes how the figures and animal forms drift between closeness and distance. The composition unfolds across the surface without a fixed narrative or resolution.
Large areas are intentionally left open, allowing tension and stillness to coexist. Small animal forms act as grounding elements within the image. Horsehair is subtly embedded into the surface, extending an interest in materials that carry both physical and symbolic associations.
2026, Oil on cotton canvas and horse hair, 64 × 190 cm
Interior Weather
Interior Weather explores the body as a shifting psychological landscape. The intertwined forms hover between closeness and dissolution, while hair, skin and animal presence move across the surface as unstable boundaries. Soft transitions in colour contrast with the physical texture of the painting, allowing the image to remain suspended between intimacy and unease.
2026, Oil and pencil on panel, 52 × 40 cm
Rest
Rest explores stillness as a psychological state rather than a moment of calm. The figure appears suspended between presence and withdrawal, while thin drawn lines remain visible beneath the painted surface. Open areas and muted colour shifts allow the image to stay unresolved and fragile.
2026, Oil on panel, 52 × 40 cm
Sketchbooks and Process Material
A selection of sketchbooks and process material tracing recurring figures, gestures and relationships across the practice. The cabinet brings together drawing, monoprint and fragmentary studies as part of an ongoing visual language.
Gathering
Gathering explores the tension between closeness and compression through a group of intertwined figures moving across the surface. Repetition and fragmentation create a sense of shared physical and emotional weight, while the monoprint process leaves unstable traces and shifting boundaries between the bodies.
2026, Mono print on paper
Presence
Monoprint on paper, 2026.
A solitary figure occupies the surface with quiet determination. Reduced to a few essential lines, the image explores presence, vulnerability and the experience of standing apart while remaining connected to the world around us.
Mono print on paper 2026
Drift
Monoprint on paper with ink, watercolor and coloured pencil, 2026.
Fluid forms move across the surface, shifting between body, landscape and memory. The image remains unresolved, allowing meaning to emerge through association rather than description.
2025, Mono print and pencil on paper
Installation View
Installation view from The Glasgow School of Art Degree Show 2026, bringing together painting, monoprint and sketchbook material within a shared psychological and material space.
Degree show 2026
Degree show 2026
Degree show 2026
Installation Degree show 2026