Anna Theresa Gregor

I make paintings that aim to capture, visually and conceptually, the complex interplay between past and present. We find ourselves in a time marked by fragmentation and uncertainty. Structures from the past inform our present but fail to show a clear path forward. Anything can be art, but Western meta-narratives of painting that once gave the tradition coherence—art as portals to the divine, as imitations of appearances, or as steps in the teleological progression toward abstraction and optical purity—have broken down.

My paintings are sites of excavation and construction where objects of the past and subjects of the present meet to build new coherent spaces from the fragments that surround us. My recent paintings are still lifes. They depict handmade gold mirrors and the spaces these mirrors reflect, combining diverse historical materials and representational techniques. I make the mirrors using an ancient gilding technique called verre églomisé, which creates a mirrored surface by affixing gold leaf to glass. The squares of gold leaf wrinkle and break as I apply them, creating a fragmented mirrored grid. I further fragment the mirror by etching an image from an art historical source into the reflective surface: Berlinghiero’s Madonna and Child, Rothko’s No. 13 (Red and white on yellow), and Guston’s Ancient Wall. Installed on my studio wall, each etched mirror reflects its surroundings while maintaining a composition of its own, filtering my present surroundings––sometimes even my reflection––through images from the past.

The gilded mirrors are complex subjects to paint from life. Their interplay of mirrored gold leaf, etched image, reflected studio space, transparent glass, cast shadows, and opaque white wall highlights the instability of vision and the role the mind plays in constructing a coherent view. My painting process mirrors this instability of vision, alternating between addition and subtraction by layering rabbit skin glue gesso, egg tempera, and oil paint to create coherent yet multiple spaces. Sometimes the physical paint dominates, sometimes the art historical reference image, sometimes the reflected space of my studio—even the gallery space in which the viewer encounters the painting is reflected in the gloss of the painted surface. The result is a realism wherein the reality depicted is a complex construction of tradition, art object, and the viewer’s present experience of looking.

SOLO SHOWS

2024 | After Faith, Tomato Mouse at Art on Paper Art Fair, New York NY

2024 | Double Space, D.D.D.D. Pictures, New York NY

2023 | Visions and Revisions, Moira Fitzsimmons Arons Art Gallery, Hamden CT

2022 | Embodiments, Tomato Mouse, Brooklyn NY

GROUP SHOWS

2024 | Glass, Concrete, and Stone, 205 Hudson Gallery 2nd Floor, New York NY

2024 | I Split the Dream, Neptune in June at Studio 9D, New York, NY

2023 | Why Do Nymphs Turn into Trees, SPRING/BREAK Art Show 2023, New York NY

2023 | Homebodies, Unit London, unitlondon.com/voices/homebodies

2023 | The Mind Roams: Abstraction for a New Age, St Joseph’s University, Brooklyn NY

2022 | Fruit Leak, SPRING/BREAK Art Show 2022, New York NY

2022 | Among Friends, New York Artists Equity Association, New York NY

2022 | Intimacies, MAPSpace, Port Chester NY

2021 | Art on the Ave: Intersections, New York NY

2021 | Old Mistresses, SPRING/BREAK Art Show 2021, New York NY

2021 | Chasing Light, Gallery 263, Cambridge MA

2021 | Double Vision, Bromfield Gallery, Boston MA

2021 | Storylines, Gallery 263, Cambridge MA

2021 | Fresh Perspectives Group Exhibition, London Paint Club, londonpaintclub.com

2020 | 2020 Members Invitational, New York Artists Equity Association, New York NY

2020 | Night & Day, Local Project Art Space and Departure Studios Gallery, Queens NY

2019 | Art 52nd Street 2019, Gallery MC, New York NY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

2024 | These Are the Buzziest Artists Discovered at New York Art Week, Paul Laster for Galerie

Magazine

2024 | Anna Gregor in the Retracted Age, Jan Dickey for Whitehot Magazine

2024 | Anna Gregor: Double Space at D.D.D.D., In Dialogue, Etty Yaniv for Art Spiel

2023 | Édouard Vuillard and the Context of Representing Domesticity, Rose Pickering

2022 | Embodiments: Critical Introduction, Eric Bayless-Hall

AWARDS + FELLOWSHIPS

2024-25 | Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant

2022-25 | Ruth Stanton Scholarship, CUNY Hunter College, New York NY

2021 | CritLab AltMFA Fellowship, CritLab, New York NY

2019 | Social Science Fellowship, The New School, New York NY

ART WRITING

2025 | Jani Zubkov’s Useless Images, Passing Notes (upcoming)

2024 | Aggregate: The City as Nature, Two Coats of Paint

2024 | Jan Dickey’s ‘The Generations’ at Bob’s Gallery, ArteFuse

2024 | Ian Myers: A Painter’s Faith, Two Coats of Paint

2024 | C’Naan Hamburger: Vanitas, Whitehot Magazine

2023 | Tess Wei: Seeing the world through dirty snow, Two Coats of Paint