Anya Paintsil (b. 1993, Wrexham, Wales) is a Welsh Ghanaian artist based in Chester, UK, working primarily in textiles. She completed her BA in Fine Art at the Manchester School of Art, Manchester, UK in 2020. From rug hooking to embroidery, her assemblages evoke tactile tapestry on the one hand, and constitute semi-sculptural interventions on the other. Frequently using weaves, braids and other hair pieces (as well as her own hair), Paintsil laces debates around race and gender into the very fabric of her work, seeking to promote artistic practices historically devalued due to their associations with femininity and other marginalised groups. Playful and profound, flippant and forceful, her practice engages the language of fibres — of all kinds — with interrogations of materiality and political personhood. Paintsil’s work is largely autobiographical, with her body of work consisting of self-portraits and portraits of her family, to communicate her experiences growing up in North Wales, as well as frequently focusing on past trauma and mental health. Following her solo presentation at 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair at Somerset House, London, UK (2020), Paintsil’s first solo museum show was at the Glynn Vivian in Swansea, Wales in 2021, commemorating her receipt of The Wakelin Prize in 2020. Her work featured in Maker’s Eye, The Craft Council Gallery, London, UK (2021) and is in the permanent collections of The Whitworth, Manchester, UK; Glynn Vivian, Swansea, Wales; and Tullie House Museum, Carlisle, UK. She is represented by Ed Cross Fine Art in London.