Painting Is Enigmatic For Luis Miguel Anaya
Painting is an emotional and complex passion for the London-based artist.
Luis Miguel Anaya by Dayton Doucette
For Luis Miguel Anaya, painting is an escape that can’t always be explained verbally but through his paintbrush. The Mexico-born, London-based artist has experienced many lives and uncertainties before becoming a painter. Despite trials and tribulations, Anaya can finally confidently call himself a painter as he’s signed to the Universally Unknown art gallery.
Anaya prioritizes authenticity and soul-searching within each brushstroke. Whether he sells a painting or it sits in his home for months, Anaya doesn’t know how to make pieces for anyone but himself. He dives into his emotions and looks at a canvas like a scientist looks through a microscope.
“I tell people all the time that I do not paint like a painter,” Anaya says. “I love painting and everything about it, but I understand that there is a lot more to our life than painting. Painting is how I best express myself and where I feel most at home. When I am painting, I feel okay, and I can best communicate with the world. I want people to converse with my paintings and try to understand me better through them.”
A feeling of relief comes over Anaya when he finishes a painting. The last brushstroke means he’s expressed everything he needed to say on canvas, then moves on to tell another story and start a new conversation. Anaya’s history of being a nomad has heavily inspired his work. Throughout his life, he’s lived in Mexico City, Michigan, Los Angeles, and London. One of his favorite paintings was created in Detroit, titled I Want To Paint.
“As soon as I completed it (I Just Want To Paint), I was so happy and proud of myself,” he says. “I looked at it and knew I had made the right decision to follow this tumultuous career. The painting was a culmination of exactly what I saw and what I was feeling at the moment. Plus, the circumstances surrounding the painting were perfect. My first small solo studio in a big city during the fall. It was the first time I felt like a real artist.”
Anaya’s method for determining what to paint has changed over time. At the beginning of his career, he would drop everything, sketch out the first images that came to his mind, and paint like a madman for three consecutive days. After adjusting and shifting mindsets, Anaya learned he doesn’t have to rush the process. Most of the time, Anaya says he usually has a vision of 10 to 15 paintings he wants to illustrate to tell a cohesive, expressive story and walk him through the discovery of life.
The painting process is different for all artists, and for Anaya, becoming inundated in the craft can feel like many emotions. In addition to relief, he often feels everything from happy, sad, overwhelmed, and frustrated. He notes that painting is like a wrestling match between the artist and the medium.
“Sometimes things can happen spontaneously and be incredible through artistic chance, but they should arrive after moments of struggle,” he says. “I do not like works of art that are done as steps where the artists know the final picture and easily complete every stage without much thought. Then, there is no transfer of pure internal emotion.”
According to Anaya, creating should be more complex because no one is simple. He says artists must dig deep to achieve creation and express life's meaning to them.
“Painting is a rollercoaster for me, but it really is where I feel the most at home, even with the struggles that come from it,” Anaya says. “There are very few feelings like overcoming expressive struggles to share what you had deep down in your soul that others can relate to. I love that about my paintings, everyone who sees them can see the real emotion in them because that is how they are painted. They may not look real, but they are very real.”
Before painting, Anaya wanted nothing more than to become a professional soccer player up until college. It was his life; he slept in his soccer jersey, collected posters of soccer players, and became addicted to FIFA. He also received a soccer scholarship to a small university in Michigan, but he didn’t enjoy it as much as he’d thought. He then decided to study biology to become a doctor and quit soccer altogether. It led to a deep grievance — crying in his dorm and dreading telling his coach he had to quit.
Biology didn’t click either. Because of this, Anaya became invested in Cinema, French New Wave films, photography, and painting. He finally felt a spark and genuine desire that he’d never felt for any of his pursuits. With Anaya’s new quest to shift into art, he, like most people, was scared of pressure, failing, and walking into the unknown.
“I became excited to learn and live again,” he says. “This all came to a climax when I read a biography about Van Gogh and decided then that I wanted to become an artist. I eventually graduated from my university in May of 2018. For the rest of the year, I continued to study photography and fashion and taught myself to draw. I was afraid to start painting because I was scared of failing. What if I was no good? What if I am making a terrible decision?”
With both feet fully emerging in art, Anaya now gives himself grace and reassurance as a full-time painter. He is confident in becoming an acclaimed painter, selling more pieces, collaborating with artists and fashion houses, making short films, making his family proud, and being able to tap into more profound versions of himself.
“Regardless of anything external, my biggest goals are artistic and personal,” Anaya says. “I want to continue to explore my medium and get closer every day to express myself in the purest way possible. Sharing my soul to the world and conversing with the people who see my art. I want to get to a point sooner rather than later where I can start helping people. I want to get the respect I think I deserve for what I do to carry weight and distance. At the end of the day, I want to paint and help others.”
