Anoushka Mondraty Polyester interview 2026 — Make it stand out

Anoushka Mondraty is a shy girl. Growing up, she realised that she liked to draw cute girly characters, and paying close attention to the placement of their big, sparkly eyes was, for her, basically mathematics. The Sydney-based artist has gained a following online for the playful paintings she creates in her studio, which she approaches with a desire to explore feminine archetypes. The characters she creates are whimsical - girls at the beach, girls wearing bows, girls drinking cocktails - and the comments on her posts mostly look like: ‘OMG this is so sweet!’.
Before she makes art, she walks around eight blocks to get into the right headspace. Some would call it procrastination, but for Anoushka, it’s “dopamine farming”. In between walks and studio sessions, we caught up to talk about how she got to where she is today, the detachment she feels from her body (in a mind-body-soul way), and her phone addiction.

Polyester: Hey Anoushka. When did you get into art? Is there a key moment you remember? Did you study it at school or are you self-taught? And when did you start taking it seriously?

I was always really into drawing cute girly characters. As a kid I would copy things from anime or cartoons. I was obsessed with Sailor Moon and Cinderella, so I have all these weird childhood drawings of girls with aprons and really big sparkly eyes. I have a clear memory of being in class and working out that if I placed the eyes lower on the face, the character would be way cuter. It was like discovering the fibonacci code.

I only properly learnt about the art canon when I went to art school as an adult. I think for a while I doubted my own taste because I felt like it was invalid in the new context, but you can’t out run yourself.

How have you developed your art style? How much has it changed since you first started out?

I think things have grown a lot materially, but I've always been exploring feminine archetypes. I found that expanding from purely painted surfaces to assemblages allowed the seductive and absurd nature of girl culture to really thrive. A lot of my favourite found objects are from dollar stores, working with them is like a balancing act of taste. The materials are so culturally loaded that they kind of have their own agency and sometimes I feel like I am just curating them.

How have your upbringing and background influenced you and your work?

Both my parents are hoarder-esque people, they love opshopping and my house growing up was overcrowded. I think this is where I absorbed my maximalist tendencies. My studio is insane and continuously borders on being unfunctional due to an excess of stuff. I often find myself painting in a weird hip-width spot on the floor, with the work propped up against some debris.

When I moved out of my family home, my room was suddenly bare and I found myself really uncomfortable. I couldn't relax. I need the excess of stuff around me to feel snug, it's like an object hug from my possessions.

Where do you draw your influences from?

I consume a lot of “shallow” media. I love pop music and reality tv. Both of which get a bad rep (definitely misogyny).

I think reality shows from the 2000s have so much to offer. The editing interference was way more obvious making them a super potent time capsule of the misogynistic cultural lean. It was a time when the contemporary hyper-feminine archetype was really born. Everything was pink and bedazzled, and breasts had a certain sense of abundance. The feminine was so exaggerated that it was aggressive.

It sounds weird, but growing up in that period I thought these super feminized women were a kind of separate creature. I have no clue how to explain it because it's illogical - but I didn't know people would grow boobs and I was kinda sheltered from seeing these representations of women. When I saw them they were so alien to me that I thought they had to be completely separate from myself or any of the female figures in my immediate life. I think so much of my art is still trying to grapple with that idea of the feminine artifice.

How do you get into the headspace to make your best work? Pre-art Rituals?

I do a lot of walking. I am addicted to walking, I can't stop. Sometimes I am close to the studio but I feel like I just need to walk around 8 blocks before I can go in. Especially if it's sunny. It's like dopamine farming - walking and listening to music. I think it's probably just a procrastination thing that I have now made sacred.

What’s your favourite artwork that you’ve created and why? Do you think it’s also your audience’s favourite piece of yours?

I really like Pussy Wand, I made it when I felt stuck in what I was making and the process was super fast - the sculpture is held together through hot glue and one thumbtack. My friend Sailor helped me make it and we hot glued this weird stick I found (and had been holding onto for some reason) to the wall. I think it encapsulates a chaos that serendipitously became so vaginally charged, through formal elements as well as coincidental references to slang. I remember looking at it and being like oh my god ive made a hello-kitty-zip-lock-bag vagina. It wouldn't have worked if I had planned it and if I had preconceptualised it - I reckon I would've felt like it was too ridiculous to make.

People seemed to like it, which was nice :) I remember installing it and having to melt the hot glue and redo it. It felt so silly, and I reckon that's why people liked it. I find people usually don't gravitate to your favourite artwork.

How do you use social media to find your people or audience, and do you find social media helpful?

I’m not sure if I am doing that effectively tbh. I think Instagram gets a bad rep for art - and rightfully so, the algorithm favours posts which have peoples faces i’m pretty sure. But on the flipside, a lot of opportunities I’ve gotten are through instagram, but then even saying that feels kinda gross like I’m scared it somehow delegitimises things.

What do you like to do outside of art? Is art your full-time gig?

Art isn’t my full time gig, idk if it's anyone's anymore. Outside of art I just like to chill and go on my phone. I am very addicted to my phone. There's an infinitely expansive world on there :))))))))

You model as well as make art - how do the two go hand in hand? What drew you to modelling?

I've always been into clothes and a lot of my work is about self ornamentation and social coding through self presentation. I wouldn't say I'm a model though - I'm not really in that world. I think I just kind of see my body as another material thing and I have a sense of detachment from it - not in a sad way but in a mind-body-soul way. If it's used to make money modeling that's cool, and if it's used for free as a part of someone's creative project that I like, that's cool.

How much of yourself do you put into your art? Thoughts on separating the art form the artist?

I mean the artworks really accumulate my personal taste and my experiences being in my body, and how I balance my fears and desires within those things. They probably say more about me than talking to me does. I'm a pretty shy and cagey person in real life.As for separating the art from the artist; I feel like that's super, super situational. There's definitely people who don't deserve systematic platforming but I still listen to Nicki Minaj.

Thanks Anoushka!

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