The Makers: Vol. 02 - Sally Anderson
- May 5
- 2 min read
The Makers: Vol. 02
Sally Anderson
Today we speak with Sally Anderson, the artist behind the works held across both Capybara flagships. Her paintings sit quietly within the space, not as decoration, but as atmosphere. An icon of both Capybara Bathing's interiors.
Working through layering, memory, and lived experience, Sally’s practice unfolds intuitively with each canvas carrying traces of what came before. Her work explores containment, the female experience, and the subtle ways space can hold meaning. Through shifting colour, repeated gestures, and a language shaped by water, her paintings are less fixed images and more evolving surfaces.
Sally’s process begins without a plan. “My creative process is intuitive and directly informed by my personal life and lived experience… I begin each work instinctively, without a fixed plan, and the initial layers are always abstract.” From there, the painting develops slowly, responding to itself. Layers are built, removed, and reworked as the surface begins to suggest its own direction. The act of making becomes a conversation between instinct and material. The process is ultimately about responding to what feels right for each individual painting.
Across her work, certain forms return - vessels, interiors, windows, bodies. Since becoming a mother, these shapes have taken on new meaning. They act as containers, holding experience, memory, and care
“Houses, rooms, vessels, and bodies all act as containers… much like a painting, they hold and carry experience, memory and meaning.”
These structures sit between the domestic and the symbolic - spaces that both protect and restrict, hold and transform.
Water moves through Sally’s work as both subject and metaphor.
Oceans, pools, flooding, and reflection appear not just as imagery, but as emotional and conceptual anchors — shifting in meaning over time.
“My relationship to water is personal… it’s something I return to for restoration and a gentle daily reset.”
Growing up near the sea, surrounded by waterfalls and creeks, water became an early constant. Later, it reappeared through the rhythms of motherhood - ambient soundscapes, bathing rituals, and the quiet repetition of daily care.
Now, it continues as something she returns to, both physically and creatively.
Colour, too, operates intuitively. Blue has long held a central place in her work - referencing both the physical world and emotional states - while newer tones begin to emerge beneath it. Browns, umbers, and yellows shifting the palette without resolving it.
“My relationship with colour is constantly shifting… it’s one of the more intuitive and unknowable aspects of my practice.”
Much of Sally’s thinking happens not at the canvas, but in between. Bathing and showering spaces become generative environments - places where the mind softens and ideas begin to form. They function as these generative non-spaces… where parts of your mind can switch off, allowing thoughts and ideas to flow.
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