Dear Collector, Art Lover, and Beauty Seeker,
My favorite subject to paint is the ocean. To capture its fluid, translucent nature, I work with an unconventional medium: resin. Typically used as a final protective coat, resin becomes my primary painting material. It is a two-part, fully transparent compound with a honey-like viscosity that must be thoroughly mixed before use. Once combined, I introduce pigments to create my own paint.
Each painting session is limited to approximately 45 minutes to one hour due to the time-sensitive chemical reaction between the two components. As the reaction progresses, the resin steadily transitions from a workable liquid state into a curing surface. Once this process begins, the material can no longer be manipulated, requiring me to work with precision, efficiency, and intention from the very beginning.
I build each piece in layered stages. I think of every layer as a sheet of tinted glass—individually transparent, but collectively capable of creating depth, movement, and atmosphere. As these layers accumulate, the work shifts from liquid to solid, with each layer curing over approximately 24 hours. This process allows me to construct a three-dimensional surface that evokes the ocean from multiple perspectives, whether viewed from above, like shifting currents or from the shoreline where water meets land.
Each painting consists of a base coat, a layer of professional spray or acrylic paint, and multiple individually tinted resin layers. To color the resin, I use Japanese dry mica pigments, inks, and professional resin dyes and pastes, carefully calibrated for translucency and tonal variation.
After each layer cures for 24 hours, I sand the surface before continuing. Every layer is refined using multiple grits of sandpaper, then cleaned with compressed air and sterilized with alcohol to ensure a pristine working surface for the next application.
I do not use traditional brushes or palette knives. My tools are more direct and physical: my hands, gravity, heat guns, blow torches, and the controlled movement of air—both warm and cold. Fire and temperature shifts become part of the painting process itself, shaping flow, texture, and form.
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 Cristo" trying to escape her cold, tiny, grey communist bedroom by daydreaming and travelling to exotic, warm places with white or gold sand beaches and teal, clear water oceans and seas.
Whatever sparks the moment — a place, a breeze, a feeling — my intention is always the same:
I want YOU to feel warmth, peace, and calm.
I want the turquoise blues and soft whites to fill your eyes and soul with beauty.
I want you to feel the sun on your skin, the warm water lapping at your feet.
If you love the ocean — if you’ve ever found joy in walking barefoot on a breezy beach — my art is meant for you.
May it bring you a little closer to that salty, sun-soaked dream.
With an open heart,
Ana Hefco