Photography

Taking photographs, to me, feels as natural as whatever I do while I am awake; having a coffee, going for a walk, messaging friends, checking emails, watering plants, taking out the trash.
I used to have cameras, now I only use my phone. I have it on me all the time anyway. No special equipment needed.
I’d say my guiding principles for images are:

I look for the not-obvious angle or subject, while traveling and in my day-to-day.
Composition is key. I am always aware that I am translating 3D to 2D.

I enjoy the whole process, taking the photographs, editing them and posting/sharing them online.
At the moment I am looking at ways to turn my photographs into printed products for sale. I am leaning towards book form rather than wall art. I adore books. Books have an intimacy, a privacy, a 1:1 that wall art doesn’t have.
A happy dream is to do a book, combining my photography, illustration and writing.

Illustration

With illustration, the focus for me is process rather than result. I find it helpful to relax, zone out, go trance. The science behind it is that one switches hemispheres in the brain, from the verbal to the non-verbal.
There is no goal for me to develop a particular style in a particular medium. I wander freely.
Simple tools, pen and paper. Always a pen and the journal in my bag. Along with water, wallet, earphones and phone.
Occasionally I make a point of using special paper and art materials. I have experimented with drawing digitally, on computer using the mouse. It is ok, but it is a different vibe, I prefer on paper rather than on screen.

That happy dream: a book, combining my photography, illustration and writing.

Instagram

Instagram, for me, is a great place both to share my art in a daily-life way or share my daily life as an artist and connect with other creatives or connect with others who do things creatively e.g. gardening, dressing up, comedy, astrology, pet grooming, there really is no limit. @shesawanja

Writing

To write something about writing.
Where would I be without it? Unimaginable. I’d probably have a different personality.
I carry around a journal and pencil case like they are emotional support animals. I like the act of writing, long hand especially. And it is so useful. A great way to pass time or spend it. Thinking. Praying. Venting. Calming Down. Giving. Receiving.

Poetry:
A field litany

I want to be a Crow. I want to ride the breeze sitting on a high twig of Scots Pine tree.

I want to be a Crow. I want to go beachcombing with my stride.

I want to be a Seagull. I want to soar. I want to surf the wind.

I want to be a Toby. I want water, water and more water. The sea, the bay.

I want to be a Robin. I want to belt it out. I want to look at the world with two tiny glossy deep brown globes. I want to know what it is like to have those impossibly thin legs.

I want to be a Blackbird. I want to be so silent and so loud.

I want to be a Magpie. I want to be THAT bold.

I want to be a Pigeon. I want a generous plumage of iridescent grey. A generous plumage with which to take naps in trees. A generous plumage to walk around with on the ground, looking like an emperor while I search for food.

I want to be a Starling. I want to be able to do that thing with my throat. Also the iridescence.

I want to be a Duck. I want to have all that power in my feet in the water.

I want to be an Owl. I want to call and call and call into the night.

Website

I started this website in early 2025. It is the 4th website I’ve had since 2011 for my art endeavours. And who knows there may even be more in future. With every site there has been a different intention. My life circumstances have been different and my relationship to art and myself have changed. With this site I have 2 goals, one is a PORTFOLIO, a place where people can go in their own time and l look at what art I make, either out of personal or professional interest. The other goal is SHARING. For me to get into the habit of and get good at sharing. I am sharing the human experience as sensed through my unique filter, the filter that is Anja Cornelia. That is what I share, how I’d like to share it is: beautifully, elegantly, simply with joy and in harmony.

Reading List

My list is a mix of what I have on the go and what has endured time’s passing and my evolution.

The books arranged themselves into clusters: creative practice, poetry, nature and place, autobiography, fiction, and picture books. The creative practice shelf is the largest — which perhaps says something about where I am, or where I want to go. The nature writing, from Cornwall and Scotland, is almost entirely coastal, almost entirely rooted in looking closely at small things, all by women.
The autobiographical cluster moves from the austerity of an architect and a desert experience through the warmth of a kitchen and into Deborah Levy's three-part reckoning with a writer woman's life.
Fiction closes with picture books. A particular passion of mine. Many of the books are on the list because of the imagery they contain, photos, illustrations, drawings, paintings, artworks, etc. and because of how the imagery and text combine to enrich the reading experience beyond merely taking in and pondering text.

The Creative Act: A Way of Being — Rick Rubin, Canongate, 2023

The Potent Self: A Study of Spontaneity and Compulsion — Moshe Feldenkrais, Frog Books and Somatic Resources, 1985/2002

Writing Down The Bones: Freeing the Writer Within — Natalie Goldberg, Shambhala, 2016

Write For Life: A Toolkit for Writers — Julia Cameron, Souvenir Press, 2023

We Need Your Art: Stop F*cking Around And Make Something — Amie McNee, Ebury Press, 2025

The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain — Betty Edwards, Harper Collins Publishers, 2008

Women Who Run With The Wolves: Contacting the Power of the Wild Woman — Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Random House Group, 1992

Milk and Honey — Rupi Kaur, Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2015

Understorey: A Year Among Weeds — Anna Chapman Parker, Duckworth, 2024

Looking Down at the Stars: Life Beneath the Waves — Christina Riley, Saraband, 2025

Sea and Shore Cornwall: Common and Curious Findings — Lisa Woollett, Zart Books, 2013

Portrait of West Penwith — Sue Lewington, Truran, 2008

Tatterdemalion — Sylvia V. Linsteadt and Rima Staines, Unbound, 2017

A Scientific Autobiography — Aldo Rossi, The MIT Press, 1981

The Sheltering Desert: A Classic Tale of Escape and Survival in the Namib Desert — Henno Martin, AD Donker Publishers, 1957 English Edition

Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights: Recipes for Every Season, Mood, and Appetite — Sophie Dahl, HarperCollins, 2009

Things I Don't Want to Know — Deborah Levy, Penguin Books, 2013

The Cost of Living — Deborah Levy, Penguin Books, 2018

Real Estate — Deborah Levy, Penguin Books, 2021

Angela Carter's Book of Fairy Tales — Angela Carter and Corinna Sargood, Virago Press, 2005

Pride and Prejudice — Jane Austen, 1813

The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso — Dante, translated by Robin Kirkpatrick, Penguin Classics, 2012

Hot Milk — Deborah Levy, Penguin Books, 2016

The Rose Field: The Book Of Dust Volume Three — Philip Pullman, David Fickling Books, 2025

Becoming Horses — Disa Wallander, Drawn and Quarterly, 2020

The Little Gardener — Emily Hughes, Flying Eye Books, 2015

The Little Prince — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1943

Watching List

Three directors get their own shelf — Villeneuve, Anderson, The Wachowskis — because with them it is about a way of seeing — a creative practice I follow.
The rest of the list moves loosely from world-builders through characters navigating systems not designed around them, into a long run of women — alone, in motion, making choices under pressure — and then into the French language films, which form their own quiet country.
The list ends on two films about fathers: one is a son reconstructing a man from fragments, the other is a crowd being told, fairly gently, that no one is coming to save them. And that one is also very, very funny.

Denis Villeneuve Arrival (2016), Blade Runner 2049 (2017), Dune: Part One (2021), Dune: Part Two (2024)

Wes Anderson Hotel Chevalier (2007) and The Darjeeling Limited (2007), The French Dispatch (2021), The Phoenician Scheme (2025)

The Wachowskis The Matrix (1999), The Matrix Reloaded (2003), The Matrix Revolutions (2003)

Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003) and Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004) — Quentin Tarantino

Tron (1982) — Steven Lisberger

Dark City (1998) — Alex Proyas

Her (2013) — Spike Jonze

Gattaca (1997) — Andrew Niccol

Local Hero (1983) — Bill Forsyth. Scotland

The Outrun (2024) — Nora Fingscheidt. Scotland

Parasite (2019) — Bong Joon-ho. South Korea

Patrick (2019) — Tim Mielants. Belgium