Ana Hefco

Artistic background

I am a self taught dreamer and artist. I am a creative human and beauty curator.
To dream is my path and to paint is my dream.
Painting fulfills me.
The ritual of preparing my materials, the working table, the music, everything about it makes me happy. Opening the pigment jars, feeling the specific scent of the resin (the medium I paint with), observing the mediums interacting and changing under fire, the peaceful restlessness I feel during the process, the perpetual element of surprise, everything is pure joy for me.
Lack of control is not my strong suit, but in the painting process things are different. The resin (also known as liquid glass) has a mind of its own and I learn to mindfully let go every time I paint. I allow those liquid color induced emotions I feel to drive me and take lead of my hands and at the end of the process, it is just music and bliss.
Resin flowing on the painting surface is like a butterfly unfolding its wings for the very first time, overwhelming beauty and color reveal uniquely surprising patterns ready to fill the yearning eyes and souls. I get to create my own “pupas” and watch them emerge into beautiful “butterflies” on the painting surface.
I love my painting style because it cannot be reproduced, repeated, recreated, every painting obtained through these techniques happens only once in an infinity of attempts.
In a way, these paintings are like us humans: one of a kind, for eternity. Isn’t that amazing?

Painting process:

My favorite subject to paint is the ocean and in order to capture its fluid transparent nature my painting medium is not a conventional one. Normally used as a final coat, resin (the medium that I paint with) presents itself in a 2 parts completely transparent formula liquids with a honey like level of viscosity that have to be thoroughly mixed together. To that I add the pigments and create my “paint”.
Each painting session is limited timewise due to the fact that the result of the chemical reaction between the 2 liquid parts is hardening, and once that process starts, I will no longer be able to handle and spread it as I desire. When I paint with resin I paint in layers. Just imagine a number of differently tinted glass sheets layered on top of each other. Only when I layer them, the glass sheets are liquid and will turn into a solid in 24 hours. Resin is exactly like that, and the fact that I paint in layers gives my paintings a tridimensional aspect with intricate details that add richness and depth to the oceans I paint, that can be viewed from an aerial perspective or as that of a shoreline viewpoint.
All my paintings have 1 base coat, 1 professional spray or acrylic paint layer and several separate tinted high-quality layers of resin.
In order to tint the resin, I use Japanese dry mica pigments, inks, and professional resin dyes and pastes.
For every single layer of the painting I have to wait 24 hours to dry and harden before proceeding with the next step: sanding.
Every layer is sanded with 4 different grits of sandpaper and air-pressure cleaned and sterilized with alcohol.
I do not use brushes or palette knives, my painting tools are a bit unconventional.
My brushes are my hands, blow torches, heat guns, spatulas, gravity, cold and warm air, fire.
The inspiration is always nature's force, balance, perfection in purpose and beauty, it can be a place I travelled or sailed to or just the breeze or a feeling while floating on our boat docked in a Turkish marina or just on anchor nearby a Greek taverna on a remote tiny island in the Mediterranean or Aegean Sea. It can be this artist as a little girl reading "The count of Monte Christo" trying to escape her cold tiny grey communist bedroom by daydreaming and travelling to exotic warm places with white and gold sand beaches and teal clear water oceans and seas.