Anna Panek

Anna Panek is a painter and architect currently serving as a lecturer at the Faculty of Media Art of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. She holds a PhD and has received recognition as a scholarship holder of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, as well as being a finalist in the Samsung Art Master competition. Her artistic practice bridges architecture and painting, with architecture representing a disciplined, culturally defined framework, while painting for her is primal and wild, belonging to the order of nature.

Her research interests focus on the relationship between architecture and painting, exploring how these disciplines can be juxtaposed or contrasted. She investigates the excess that exists in nature, its vitality, and the fear it evokes in its primal state. Her artistic process functions as an exercise of instinct, drawing on it as a fundamental response to the world. Her work emphasizes multi-colorfulness, sensuality, movement, layering, and the overgrowth of space as important characteristics of her artistic practice.

Her recent exhibitions demonstrate a consistent exploration of nature-inspired themes, tactile experiences, and the relationship between structured architectural forms and organic artistic expression. Her 2024 exhibition "Cut'n'sew (I change, undo, repeat)" at the Per libros ad astra Gallery exemplifies her current work with fabric, texture, and stitching as structural elements that resemble natural joints.

• Scholarship of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage
• Finalist in Samsung Art Master competition

Anna Panek has collaborated with numerous institutions including the lokal_30 gallery, and her works are part of collections at the National Bank of Poland and the National Museum in Gdańsk. She has exhibited widely across Poland and internationally, including at the Arsenal Gallery in Białystok, CSW Zamek Ujazdowski in Warsaw, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw.

Her artistic practice extends to creating murals and installations in architectural contexts, where she explores how painting can freely spread, annex, obliterate, or transform physical structures. She maintains an active presence in the contemporary art scene through her personal website (annapanek.com) and blogs, documenting her artistic process and projects.