Anita Groener was born and raised in the Netherlands and moved to Dublin, Ireland, where she is based. Questions of migration, memory, place, time and what it means to be human today have catalysed the artist’s practice since she left her native country. She works through drawing, sculpture, painting, video, animation and installation.
Her work constitutes a profound meditation on war, loss, displacement, exile, resilience, renewal, and hope through installations that painstakingly transform discarded materials such as twigs, twine, and cardboard into delicate sculptural metaphors for the interconnectedness of individual experiences and world events. Her work evokes patterns of displacement and the fragility of existence, as well as probing both the psychological effects of human tragedy and the resilience that may result. “It is a questioning of perception and a longing to get closer to understanding human conscience.”
Her work has been exhibited recently at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Jane Lombard Gallery, New York; Columbus Circle, Shanghai; Riverside Museum, Beijing; Art on Paper, New York; Volta Basel with Gibbons & Nicholas; Stedelijk Museum Schiedam; 21c Museum Hotel Bentonville, Arkansas + 21c Cincinnati; Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris; Witteveen Visual Art Centre, Amsterdam; Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin; the Kilkenny Arts Festival; Poggiali & Forconi Gallery, Florence; Park013, Tilburg, and Rubicon Gallery Dublin. Collections include The Irish Museum of Modern Art; The Arts Council of Ireland; the State Art Collection, Ireland; 21c Museum Hotels; Sun Communities Inc, USA; VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam; Irish National Collection of Contemporary Drawing; AIB; and ABN-AMRO Bank and Facebook EMEA Headquarters. In 2010 she was awarded a residency at the Josef & Anni Albers Foundation, Bethany, CT, USA; in 2014, she was an artist at Point B, Williamsburg, NYC, USA. Commissions have included The Poetry Project; Home, a film/poem for Bealtaine Festival; Facebook HMEA Headquarters.
In 2005 she was elected a member of Aosdána, the prestigious official association of Ireland’s preeminent cultural producers. Until 2014 she was a lecturer in Fine Art at TU Dublin, where she also served as the Head of Fine Art from 2004 to 2006. In addition, she served as a member of the Public Art Committee of the Grangegorman Development Agency (2014-2021) and of the Arts Council of Ireland Collection Acquisition Committee(2019-2020). She holds a BA in Fine Art from Moller Institute, Tilburg, and an MA in Painting from de Hogeschool, Arnhem, the Netherlands.
Ps. Groener is pronounced Ghroo-nur in English ;)
Talks and In Conversations about my work