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 80^th 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.