Anna VanMatre
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→ "To those who fight..." - this is the title of the exhibition of Anna VanMatre's works at the Galicia Museum in Kraków
Dziennik Polski, July 13, 2020→ Artist of the Week Anna VanMatre
ArtTour International Magazine, January 2020→ The Everlasting Dichotomy
Cultural Avenue, June 2018→ She brought the USA, Africa and Europe to their knees, now the people of Oświęcim. Anna VanMatre's exhibition can be viewed at the International Youth Meeting House
Gazeta Krakowska, June 2018→ Local artist’s monumental work headed for Auschwitz Youth Centre, story captured in documentary
Northern Kentucky Tribune, May 2018→ Clifton artist’s work to be exhibited at Auschwitz
Cincinnati Business Courier, May 2018→ Tragic Beauty
CityBeat, April 2009→ Essence of Reality
NY Arts Magazine, March/April 2006→ Naturally Theatrical
NY Arts Magazine, July/August 2005→ Sound Bites
NY Arts Magazine, May/June 2005→ Inside the Artist’s Studio: Anna VanMatre
NY Arts Magazine, March/April 2005→ Cultural Chronicle of New York (Art), May, 2004
New Journal, June 4, 2004→ Graphite Passions of Anna VanMatre
New Journal, April 19, 2004→ Hanging Interpretations
NY Arts Magazine, May/June 2004→ Blue Sky’s Artists Push the Limits
NY Arts Magazine, November/December 2004→ Among the Elements
New Journal, March 22, 2002→ Metaphorical Dimensions
Cultural Kaleidoscope, 1997→ The Multidimensional, Monumental World of Anna Socha
Word, Culture, April 30 – May 4, 1997→ Anna’s World
Art, Warsaw 1995→ My graphic paintings - Exhibition by Anna Socha
The Morning of the Sahara and the Maghreb, May 3, 1994 -
Selected Solo Exhibitions
→ 2025 – Skysea Museum of Art, A Symphony of Nature, Light and Shadow, Guiyang, China
→ 2025 – Xiyun Academy Gallery, Symphony of Nature and Light, Jiezi, Chongzhou, China
→ 2023 – Cincinnati Shakespeare Theater, To Those Who Resist…
→ 2022 – Teatr Stu, To Those Who Resist…, Kraków, Poland
→ 2021 – The Museum for Persecuted Arts, To Those Who Fight…, Solingen, Germany
→ 2020 – Galicia Jewish Museum, To Those Who Fight…, Kraków
→ 2018 – International Youth Meeting Centre, To Those Who Warn…, Oświęcim/Auschwitz
→ 2018 – Peterloon, Streamlight, Cincinnati
→ 2016 – Corbett Auditorium, Metamorphoses – Fire, Cincinnati
→ 2013 – Kraków Philharmonic Hall, Metamorphoses – Water and Fire, Kraków
→ 2009 – The Carnegie, DeNatural Disaster, Covington
→ 2005 – Broadway Gallery, New Works, New York City
→ 2005 – Berliner Kunstproject, Now Between, Berlin, Germany
→ 2004 – Gallery@49, In Time In Between, New York City
→ 2004 – Contemporary Arts Center, In Time In Between – Smoke (Multimedia), Cincinnati
→ 2002 – Gallery@49, Lines Above, New York City
→ 1999 – Music Hall, Modulation from Three Crowns, Cincinnati
→ 1997 – Hillmer Art Gallery, Dimension, Omaha, Nebraska
→ 1997 – Jerusalem Centre for the Performing Arts, Hope, Israel
→ 1996 – El-Dan Forum Gallery, Generations – Regenerations, Jerusalem, Israel
→ 1995 – Dieterle Center, Earthkind – Humankind, University of Cincinnati
→ 1994 – Stara Prochownia Theater, Stormy Times, Warsaw, Poland
→ 1994 – Bab El Kebir Gallery, Mes Tableaux Graphitiques, Rabat, Morocco
→ 1993 – Abakus Gallery, Habitat, Warsaw
→ 1993 – Ostróda Castle, NO and Habitat, Ostróda, Poland
→ 1992 – Regent Gallery, Clouds, Virginia Beach
→ 1989 – A.R.C. Gallery, Habitat, Chicago
→ 1989 – Tarble Art Center, Graphite Paintings, Eastern Illinois University, Charleston
→ 1979 – Contemporary Art Gallery, Drawings, Warsaw
Selected Group Exhibitions
→ 2024 – Washington Park Gallery. BARE, Cincinnati
→ 2024 – Eisele Gallery, Stormy Weather, Cincinnati
→ 2024 – Miami University Art Museum, The World in Which We Live:
The Art of Environmental Awareness, Oxford, Ohio
→ 2019 – MOCAK Museum of Modern Art in Kraków, Nature in Art, Poland
→ 2019 – ArtBox.Project Zürich 1.0, Swiss Art Expo
→ 2018 – ArtBox.Project New York 1.0, Armory Art Weeks, New York City
→ 2018 – Rio Gallery, Art Tour International, New York City
→ 2016 – Caelum Gallery, Art Takes Manhattan, New York City
→ 2016 – ArtBox.Project Gallery, Miami Art Fair, Miami
→ 2011 – Ward-Nasse Gallery, Departure, New York City
→ 2011 – Miami University Art Museum, Out of the Shadows, Oxford, Ohio
→ 2011 – Chelsea Art Museum, Chelsea Biennial, New York City
→ 2009 – State Hermitage Museum, Sonic Self, Saint Petersburg, Russia
→ 2009 – NY Arts Venice Pavilion, Work on Paper, Art Biennale, Venice
→ 2008 – Chelsea Art Museum, Sonic Self, New York City
→ 2008 – Broadway Gallery, New Beginning, New York City
→ 2006 – McWorthington Gallery, Summer Sizzles, Columbus, Ohio
→ 2004 – Blue Sky Gallery, The Sky’s the Limit, New York City
→ 2003 – Gallery@49, Summer Show, New York City
→ 2002 – Gallery@49, Mid-Summer Show, New York City
→ 1999 – Gallery Sculptura, Art for a New Millenium, Cincinnati
→ 1985 – BWA Radom, Salon Zimowy, Radom, Poland
→ 1981 – Galeria Zachęta, Group Exhibition, Warsaw
→ 1980 – Galeria Sztuki KMPiK, Próby, Torun, Poland
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Anna Socha VanMatre was born in Poland and educated at the Kraków Art High School and the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts where she received her Master’s Degree. She has developed techniques utilizing synthetic paper, graphite layering, three-dimensional effects involving cut and torn canvases, and LED instruments. Her primary focus has been the dividing line between reality and the abstract.
From the start, her preferred medium was large-format pencil drawing. She began by creating monochromatic compositions representing configurations of clouds, sometimes permeated by light, in series entitled CLOUDY LANDSCAPE, TURBULENT TIMES, HABITAT, SPACES and LIMITS. These black and white graphite paintings, many as large as 20 feet, were described by critics as "symphonies of blackness, gray and light" and a significant step in "liberating" the drawing idiom. At an exhibition at the Jerusalem Center for the Arts, her installation was praised as much more than a collection of static pieces, but instead “a thing of theatrical character, an interaction between the stage and the audience.”
NO has been one of the longest running cycles by VanMatre. Beginning in 1982 she concentrated on themes of nuclear proliferation; later, industrial pollution and dangerous technology were the concept. The horror of Chernobyl was the subject of NO in a group of 1986-96 gray drawings on torn and cut paper. In 1997, HOPE IN BLUE entered a new phase with the addition of color, the focus of the work’s tension. This cycle in retrospect served as an ominous prediction of her 2001-02 WTC (World Trade Center) that said “NO” to terror and intolerance through three dimensional vertical diptychs.
2003-04 marked the introduction of the installations In Time In Between-Smoke and In Time In Between-Volcano containing ambiguous cloud/smoke forms with dramatic shadow effects. In 2005 her cycle LINES ABOVE featured vibrant objects in graphite on synthetic paper, three-color silkscreen on glass, and black and white lithography. Another sequence, CITIES, showed different images of the sky over various cities. In 2006 her series PRIMARY COLORS utilized collage materials like textured paper and foil, and color-layering, to evoke a magnified view of the world above the horizon. DENSITY ABOVE from 2006, is a group of paintings based on observations of rock formations in Sedona, Arizona and New York City’s Central Park.
The 2007-08 cycle OPEN, united sea and sky in perhaps the most expansive of all her nature-based themes. 2008-09’s DENATURAL DISASTER spotlighted the devastation created by Humankind and/or Nature with forms dominated by darkness and touched by the red stream of blood/lava. The ambiguity of “explosions-clouds” became a medium of communication between “earth-reality” and “sky-eternity”, allowing the viewer to understand them as either the intervention of human brutality or the power of nature. From 2010-17, her series CONSTANT, WATERFALLS, STREAMLIGHT, and DISCOVERIES, explored the endless energy of the sea and coral reefs, and used LED illumination to generate motion. Since 2017 she has explored seven and eight panels’ installations with variable orders titled Non Omnis Moriar and Catching Light.
In 2018, she began a new series called TO THOSE utilizing multi-layered and altered photography as well as graphite and pastel. Her extensive (over 71 feet) installation, To Those Who Warn…, was dedicated to victims of the Holocaust and to the Polish hero Jan Karski and was exhibited at the International Meeting Centre at Auschwitz in Poland. To Those Who Protect… was dedicated to groups and individuals devoted to protecting our marine environment on a global scale and was shown in 2019 in Nature in Art at MOCAK Museum of Modern Art in Kraków. To Those Who Fight… was dedicated to heroes trapped in the Kraków Ghetto who conducted subversive and combat operations against the Nazis; it was presented at the Galicia Jewish Museum in Poland in 2020 and at the Center for Persecuted Arts in Solingen, Germany in 2021.
VanMatre’s works have been shown in exhibitions in Europe, Africa, Asia and the U.S. They are held in the National Museum in Torun, Poland, the Krasinski Library in Warsaw, Skysea Museum of Art in China and in private collections in many countries. She is the recipient of several prizes including the Stanisław Wyspiański Artistic Award. In 2011 VanMatre was honored to be featured in the Miami University Art Museum exhibition, Out of the Shadows: The Rise of Women in Art. In 2013 her fourteen-panel Metamorphoses-Fire and Water was permanently installed in the Karol Szymanowski Philharmonic Hall in Kraków in tribute to Krzysztof Penderecki. The work was inspired by Penderecki’s Violin Concerto No. 2 (Metamorphosen) and unveiled at the symphony orchestra’s gala inaugural concert of the 2013-14 season in celebration of Maestro Penderecki’s 80th birthday.
VanMatre also has been active in giving presentations about her philosophy and techniques. Lectures have included UC, Miami University, and universities in Brazil, South Korea, and China where she addressed the students, participated in round table exchanges with the faculty, and engaged in collaborative painting sessions comparing her methods with Asian calligraphy. She also has presented lectures on her art to the Polish Art Salon in San Diego and the Helena Modjeska Art and Culture Club in Los Angeles. She resides in Cincinnati, Ohio.
We fragile and vulnerable beings are susceptible to many powers. With its essential aesthetic and complexity, NATURE has an intensity that terrifies us, but an attraction that amazes us. We are both witnesses and players in this great performance. I show paradoxical forces, natural and human-made, ever-changing yet unifying, brutal yet beautiful.
Procedures such as carving, tearing and sculpting the surfaces introduce diversions and discoveries, as I explore the region between reality and abstract, creating a different view from every vantage point. I like to envelop the audience and bring them directly inside the scene – an enactment of life with its conflict between fury and serenity.
