BIO
Anika De Souza is a London-based abstract mixed media artist originally from Germany. With a background in graphic design, photography and calligraphy, and over a decade in the advertising industry, her practice centres on the evolving surface of the painting and the relationship between painting, material, and trace.
Working with acrylic, graphite, oil stick, and dry media, De Souza builds up the surface through layers of washes and gesture – covering, revealing, and removing until something holds. Each layer carries traces of thought, movement, and time; the painting isn't planned as a fixed image, it develops as she works.
Language is one of several materials within this process — fragments of found text, spontaneously written words, and asemic writing that shift from something read to something experienced as material trace.
Her work explores the space between articulation and silence, presence and absence. Empty spaces – Leerräume – are as active as the marks themselves, allowing each painting to remain open rather than resolved.
De Souza has exhibited at The Other Art Fair, The Affordable Art Fair, Kingston Open Artist Studios, The Circle Gallery, and TAP Gallery (Turner Art Perspective Gallery), and her work has been featured in Times and Leisure. She lives and works in Kingston upon Thames.
CV
EDUCATION & PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND
Studied Graphic Design with a focus on Calligraphy, which laid the foundation for her ongoing exploration of language, form, and material. Worked in advertising before becoming self-employed as a Photographer and Calligrapher while raising a family. This continuous creative practice evolved naturally into her current work, which bridges calligraphy, abstraction, and material experimentation.
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2026 Let them eat cake – KAOS Group e
2026 The Circle Gallery, Sunninghill
2025 TAP Gallery, Essex
2025 KAOS (Kingston Open Art Studios), The Rose Theatre
2025 The Circle Gallery, Sunninghill
2024 KAOS (Kingston Open Art Studios), The Rose Theatre
OPEN ART STUDIOS & ART FAIRS
2026 Affordable Art Fair, May, London
2025 The Other Art Fair, October, London
2025 Kingston Open Art Studios, Kingston Upon Thames
2025 The Other Art Fair, March, London
2024 The Other Art Fair, October, London
2024 Kingston Open Art Studios, Kingston Upon Thames
2023 Kingston Open Art Studios, Kingston Upon Thames
2022 Kingston Open Art Studios, Kingston Upon Thames
Publications & Bibliography
2024 Time and Leisure — KAOS Returns
2023 Yearbook of lettering #1, Slanted Publisher UG, Karlsruhe, Germany
2023 Typism Book nine, Finesse Press 2022, Sydney, Australia
2022 Typism, Book eight, Finesse Press 2022, Sydney, Australia
2020 The Calligraphy Ideas Book, Alison Starling Publisher, Lyndsey Gribble, Toronto, Canada