Shadows 8 Print

Born in Moscow in 1980, Anna Grau spent her childhood and youth in Saint Petersburg, where she attended an art school from 1990 to 1994. The following year she moved to Germany as an expatriate and has lived in Berlin ever since. From 1997 onward she took private lessons for four years in the renowned Posin art salon, and then studied from 2001 to 2007 at the Weißensee School of Art in Berlin. Since 2008 Anna has been living as a freelance painter. While Anna Grau draws on diverse themes, the WOMAN is most often found at the centre of her art—she sees it as the leitmotif of her work. As a study of femininity, her work particularly focuses on its powerful and often hidden aspects, with the artist drawing from classical sources in her depictions. This approach is reflected in the frequent over-dimensioning of the female form in her large-format Old-Master style. Possibly the most striking feature of Anna Grau's art is the degree of inner harmony found in each of her paintings. Whether depicted against a dark background or embedded within a composition, her figures radiate a sovereign calmness, often nonetheless evoking a sense of subliminal tension. It is through these seemingly contradictory dynamics that the magical realism of Anna Grau's work gains its intensity. Hence, it matters not whether the figure looks directly at the viewer, or whether she has her gaze turned away: the connection is always intimate.