The series "The Vanishing North" is part of the larger body of work, The Ghosts We Create, conceived during the summer of 2023 at the Venezia Contemporanea Residencies Program in Venice, Italy. Inspired by the artist's second home-Canada-and its diverse wildlife, The Vanishing North features papercuts and mixed-media paintings that portray Canadian wildlife, highlighting the urgent environmental challenges they face. These challenges threaten their survival, leading to a gradual decline in their populations until they vanish completely.
This papercut depicts a great horned owl and was created in Winnipeg, MB, Canada.
In November 2024 Anja unveiled for the first time an edition of papercuts as a homage to this old Swiss tradition and since then her art practice has solely focused on papercutting Canadian wildlife. The artist has had a love for traditional Swiss papercuts ever since her childhood and her illustrations have long been inspired by this artform. A workshop in Switzerland in 2018 gave her the confidence to explore papercutting within her art practice. Anja’s delicate papercuts depict wildlife in her distinctive graphic style using patterns. The patterns unravel into lines, echoing the message of wildlife being in danger of becoming extinct and disappearing in front of our eyes.
