Monika Wanat

"Empathy is the closest thing we have to a universal language. It asks us to see other beings without placing ourselves at the center." Monika Wanat

Born in Warsaw in 1991 and based in Vienna. Visual artist and photographer with a scientific background (PhD in Natural Sciences). Her work is rooted in the idea of empathy as a form of understanding and as a way of crossing perceptual boundaries. This perspective links her long-term series “Diffuse”, “Psyche”, and “Escape”, each exploring the possibility of communication between beings and worlds. She began the “Diffuse” series in 2014, focusing on unguarded human moments that appear when the awareness of observation fades. In the same year she started “Psyche”, a project devoted to the emotional lives of animals. She photographs them with the attentiveness normally reserved for human portraiture - not to humanize them, but to recognise their individuality and presence.Her scientific training influences her way of seeing, helping her frame emotional observations within the context of contemporary research on animal cognition while maintaining an artistic perspective. “Escape”, her more recent mixed-media series (painting and hybrid photography), extends these interests into abstract...

PhD in Natural Sciences, University of Warsaw, Poland

Solo exhibitions:
"Psyche" Curated By Izabela Rogala (Art Historian And Curator) In Defabryka Warsaw, Poland, 2025

Group exhibitions:
1. Muse Photography Awards - Post-Competition Virtual Exhibition Of 100 Best Artists, United States, 2024
2. "Poetics Of Darkness", Der Greif, Curated By Dr. Tina Campt And Keisha Scarville, Germany, 2024
3. No Borders Awards Exhibition, Gallery Artists Spiš Spišská Nová Ves, Slovakia, 2024
4. No Borders Awards Exhibition, University Of Bielsko-Biala Bielsko-Biala, Poland, 2024
5. No Borders Awards Exhibition, Hungarian University Of Fine Arts Budapest, Hungary, 2024
6. No Borders Awards Exhibition, Galerie Fm Frýdek-Místek, Czechia, 2024
7. "Etnoklimaty Xi", Ethnographic Museum In Toruń, Poland, 2023