About ZANIMA  

Zanima is the artist name of London-based painter Zane Kārkliņa. Her practice moves between figuration and abstraction, combining vivid, high-chroma colour with atmospheric light and the physicality of paint. Painting sits within a wider visual career spanning photography, publishing, graphic design and the Urban Sketching movement.   

Before starting to paint, Zane spent more than a decade working in publishing and photography. She later established her own creative practice, The Fairy Godmother Project, bringing together design, photography, publishing and creative commissions. Her background in photography continues to shape the way she looks at people, light and composition.   

She completed an MA in Photography at the University of West London before undertaking the Portrait Diploma and Post-Diploma Figurative Painting programme at Heatherley School of Fine Art. 

Zane’s painting practice has developed from portraiture and figurative work towards a more open relationship between figure, abstraction, colour and surface.  She works primarily in acrylics and oils, including fluorescent paints, building and peeling back layers to create richly worked, physically expressive surfaces. 

She has exhibited in London and continues to develop her practice through painting, exhibitions and art prints.