Ayanna Aneesa Rafia’s paintings explore the relationship between architecture, memory, and the body. Working through surface, structure, and repetition, her compositions consider how space holds traces of past presence while continuously being rewritten. Architectural forms appear as living records—marked by use, altered by time, and shaped by the bodies that move through them.

Through processes that emphasize layering and material accumulation, the work reflects a sensitivity to what is revealed, concealed, and embedded within physical space over time. These surfaces operate as palimpsests—bearing witness to histories that persist even as they evolve.

Ayanna Aneesa Rafia (b. 2002, Southfield, MI) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Detroit, MI. She received her BFA from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and studied Interior Architecture at DIS Copenhagen. Rafia is the inaugural resident of the NY Developer Residency in Brooklyn. Her work has been exhibited at Stamps Gallery (2024), Ann Arbor, MI and Gallery DAAS (2024).