Illustration

Over the last few years, Anna has developed an illustration practice. Her works stems from a longstanding passion for illustrated books, from medieval illuminated manuscripts to more modern illustrated fairytales and children stories. She works both with collage, using her own photographic material, and drawing with inks, gouache and crayons.

She has worked extensively with writer and historian Dr Isabel Davis (Natural History Museum, London). Their book Conceiving Histories, Trying for Pregnancy, Past and Present (MIT Press) coming out early next year, has 108 colour collage illustrations by Anna.

She is currently designing a deck of fully illustrated conversations cards for (Mis)Conceptions, a project housed at The Natural History Museum in London. Anna is also working on children literature project.

If you wish to see and learn more about her illustration work, please request a more extensive portfolio here:

Illustration portfolio request

Conceiving Histories,
Trying for Pregnancy Past and Present

by Isabel Davis, published by MIT Press, 25 February 2025, 108 illustrations

“A fascinating and beautifully illustrated account of trying to conceive in both the past and the present.

Inspired by the author's own experience, Conceiving Histories brings together history, personal memoir, and illustration to investigate the culturally hidden experience of trying to conceive. In elegant, engaging prose, Isabel Davis explores the combination of myth, fantasy, science, and pseudo-science that the (un)reproductive body encounters in pursuit of a viable pregnancy. The book chronicles the trying-to-conceive lifecycle arc from sex education at school, through the desire to be a parent, into the specifics of trying and struggling to conceive. It also looks back at conception throughout history to open a new vista on what we live with today.

A central argument of Davis's is that historical people lived with the unknown just like we do but were more explicitly able to acknowledge it. In an age of assistive reproductive technologies, the act of embracing uncertainty seems difficult. Although the topic of not conceiving is potentially painful, this is not a grim book; more than grief, it is motivated by curiosity, wonder, compassion, and even humor. With 108 full-color illustrations, Conceiving Histories is also a beautiful material object, an intentionally playful antidote and supplement to Google—the resort of so many embroiled in fertility challenges.”

Preorder here

(Mis)Conceptions

The (Mis)Conceptions deck is a set of conversation cards exploring people’s experiences of trying to become parents, whether biologically or otherwise, while foregrounding questions, themes and images that have come up in the archival research and public engagement activities. The deck uses tarot as a structuring device, linking it to historic devices for addressing pregnancy ambiguity.

Work in progress:

So Goes the Story

So goes the Story or A Fishy Stinky Dream is a collection of illustrations about a unsettling dreamlike journey in a land memories of childhood games and stories.