Illustrator Ana Benaroya embraces the “imperfections” in her playful depictions

Illustrator Ana Benaroya’s colourful paintings and illustrations exaggerate people in familiar professions and situations turning them into brightly coloured caricatures. She describes her work as honest, humorous, imperfect, sexy and loud, and this is imbued by enlarged facial features, buoyant appendages and lengthy torsos.

One of the most important aspects of Ana’s work is colour and her bold choices give the work an energy. “Colour adds all the fun and excitement! It can bring a piece to life, add humour, make it scream,” she explains. Ana started using bright colours when she was designing concert posters. “I was fascinated by how beautiful limited colour palettes were – so I started experimenting with that in my own work. Since I’m quiet as a person, I think I try and make my artwork the opposite. I can be loud and flamboyant without having to make conversation with anyone.”

Each of Ana’s paintings start fairly instinctively, with the illustrator just seeing where an idea takes her: “I tend to keep moving forward without much revising, whether it’s pencils, ink, or paint,” she says. “If it’s a painting I’ll do a quick sketch then get straight into painting. I’d rather deal with the imperfections of a piece than go back and revise something. I figure I’ll learn the lessons for each piece and apply that knowledge to the next one.”