Rania Matar

Artist Biography

Rania Matar was born and raised in Lebanon and moved to the U.S. in 1984. As a Lebanese-born American woman and mother, her cross-cultural experience and personal narrative inform her photography.

Matar’s work has been widely exhibited in museums worldwide, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Carnegie Museum of Art, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Rollins Museum of Art, and more. It is part of the permanent collections of several museums, institutions, and private collections. A mid-career retrospective of her work was recently on view at Cleveland Museum of Art, Amon Carter Museum of Art, American University of Beirut Museum.

Matar received a 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship, 2017 Mellon Foundation artist-in-residency grant, 2011 Griffin Museum of Photography Legacy Award, and a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowships in 2021, 2011 and 2007. In 2008 she was a finalist for the Foster Award at the ICA/Boston, with an accompanying solo exhibition.

She published four books:

SHE, 2021; L’Enfant-Femme, 2016; A Girl and Her Room, 2012; Ordinary Lives, 2009.

Rania Matar is represented by Galerie Tanit Beirut/Munich.

Exhibitions
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Paper Trail
50 years
Collective Exhibition

From November 23, 2022 to December 23, 2022

Featured
PARIS PHOTO 2022

From November 10, 2022 to November 13, 2022

Featured
15 Years, Crossed Perspectives
Collective Exhibition

From November 4, 2022 to January 7, 2023

Featured
I Am One Acquainted With The Night
Collective Exhibition

From June 5, 2021 to September 25, 2021

Featured
Two Shows
Rania Matar | Bongchull Shin

From December 12, 2018 to February 26, 2019

Featured
She
Rania Matar

From April 12, 2018 to June 1, 2018

Featured
Féminités Plurielles
Collective Exhibition

From February 8, 2018 to April 5, 2018

Selected Works
Lea, Beirut, Lebanon, 2019

She is free in her wildness, she is a wanderess, a drop of free water.

She knows nothing of borders and cares nothing for rules or customs.

‘Time’ for her isn’t something to fight against.
Her life flows clean, with passion, like fresh water.

— ROMAN PAYNE, THE WANDERESS

From Rania Matar’s book SHE (2021)

Lea, Beirut, Lebanon, 2019
Rania Matar
Rania Matar, Lea, Beirut, Lebanon
Archival Pigment Print on Baryta Paper
2019
94 cm x 112 cm

She is free in her wildness, she is a wanderess, a drop of free water.

She knows nothing of borders and cares nothing for rules or customs.

‘Time’ for her isn’t something to fight against.
Her life flows clean, with passion, like fresh water.

— ROMAN PAYNE, THE WANDERESS

From Rania Matar’s book SHE (2021)

Rania Matar News
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Oceans at my Door
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Fitchburg Art Museum : Rania Matar : Oceans at My Door
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Nineteen Women and Non-Binary Photographers Who Shaped Photography’s Past and Future
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مصوّرات مشغولات بالهوية والعمارة… والمدينة الآفلة
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"Rania Matar will take part in the main exhibition of Korea International Photo Festival 2020. We wish everyone the best during this challenging period. <The Horizons of Relations> Artists for the Main Exhibition: Ryan Schude, Rania Matar, Laís Pontes, Katerina Belkina 예술의전당 Seoul Arts Center, Hangaram Design Museum (5/17 ~5/23)"
Rania Matar | Korea International Photo Festival 2020
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