Angelika Van
Oil painting, installation, sculpture and ceramics.
I am Angelika Van, a multimedia artist born in Yerevan, Armenia, in 1991 and currently based in Frankfurt, Germany.
My practice explores the relationship between human and nature, identity, memory, feminism, and transformation. I work across oil painting, installation, sculpture, and ceramics.
View CVAcademy of Visual Arts, Frankfurt
"My portraits move beyond physical likeness toward psychological presence."
Painting and portraiture
Painting, especially portraiture, is central to my practice. I photograph my subjects myself before painting them, using photography to observe their gestures, expressions, and emotional states. My portraits move beyond physical likeness toward psychological presence.
Human and animal
A recurring focus in my work is the boundary between human and animal. Monkeys often appear in human situations, creating an unfamiliar reflection of our own behaviour, instincts, relationships, and social structures. My involvement with animal rescue has further strengthened this interest in vulnerability and our relationship with other forms of life.
Womanhood, identity and memory
I also investigate womanhood, identity, bodily experience, memory, and freedom through installation, sculpture, ceramics, and video. Growing up in Armenia and later living in Germany has shaped my perspective on belonging, cultural memory, and transformation.
My visual language combines figurative painting, symbolism, surreal elements, and psychological imagery. Recurring motifs such as the human figure, animals, and the eye create connections between works while questioning the boundaries between what we see and what lies beneath the surface.
Artist Statement
At the centre of my artistic practice is the human being—their emotional landscape, personal history, and fragile relationship with the natural world. I explore the invisible connections between humans, animals, and nature, approaching them not as separate entities but as interconnected forms of life within a shared system. Through painting, sculpture, ceramics, and installation, I construct symbolic and surreal worlds in which instinct, memory, vulnerability, identity, and transformation converge.
Surreal imagery allows me to move beyond the limits of literal representation and enter a psychological space where human and animal forms, objects, and symbols can exist together in unexpected relationships. I am interested in what emerges from these encounters: the tension between instinct and reason, vulnerability and power, belonging and alienation. Animals often appear as both subjects and mirrors, allowing me to question what we consider distinctly human and to examine our responsibility toward other forms of life.
Painting remains central to my practice, while sculpture and ceramics allow these ideas to become physical and tactile. Installation extends them into space, creating environments in which the viewer becomes part of the work. I am particularly interested in materiality—texture, weight, scale, surface, and the traces of the hand—as a way of carrying emotion and memory. Each medium offers a different language, but the underlying questions remain connected.
My relationship with art began in childhood in Yerevan, Armenia, when I secretly used my older sister's watercolours while she was away. Because I had only a short time to paint before she returned, I learned to work instinctively and without hesitation. That early experience continues to influence my practice: I value intuition, spontaneity, and the possibility of allowing an image to develop through the process rather than being completely predetermined.
Growing up in Armenia and later living in Germany has also shaped my understanding of identity, belonging, memory, and transformation. Moving between cultural contexts has made me attentive to the ways personal and collective histories remain present within the body and within our relationship to place.
My work does not seek to provide definitive answers. Instead, I create situations in which familiar boundaries—between human and animal, nature and culture, instinct and consciousness—become unstable. I am interested in that moment of uncertainty, where recognition gives way to questioning and where the viewer may encounter both the vulnerability of others and their own position within the larger living world.