BIO

Annika Rhea is an immersive action painter, movement artist and creativity coach based out of NYC. 

She is the creator of BODY MEDIUM, a painting technique that utilizes the body in motion as a painting tool. Her work merges visual art, performance art and video art. Rhea is a process-oriented artist and is inspired by the relationship between motion, color, rhythm and emotion. Her work ranges from painting the embodiment of a concept or emotional state to painting her interpretation of musical score.

Rhea has over two decades of dance training, performance experience and cross-training in several movement disciplines such as ballet, modern, contemporary dance, martial arts, flow arts, Duncan technique and Graham technique, receiving a BA in Dance from The George Washington University. 

Rhea began painting over a decade ago when an injury prevented her from dancing. She painted as a creative outlet and allowed the paint to dance for her, using the canvas as her stage. She spent over a decade developing her craft as movement-based abstract expressionist painter before solidly merging the two disciplines of dance and painting in 2016 to create BODY MEDIUM. 

Rhea has collaborated with several musicians and videographers worldwide. She creates custom large-scale abstract painting commissions in partnership with Pantone and performs at galleries, festivals,  high-end events, luxury hotels and charity galas. Rhea has had solo shows and featured performances during Miami Art Week, Scope Art Fair, Art Basel Switzerland, Hamptons Fine Art Fair, Clio Art Fair, Art With Me Miami, and Brooklyn Fashion Week. Her work has also been featured in Box Factory Gallery and Haas Art Gallery. She was selected as the artist in residence for The Box Factory in NYC in 2020, for Loews Hotel Miami during Art Basel of 2021 and was the selected artist in resident to exhibit and perform at Pfoertnerhaus and Mind Studios during Art Basel in Switzerland in 2023.