‘My work brings together my fascination for the life of plants, my involvement with education, and my interest in social exchange, in communities and political processes. My work begins from an affection for documentary, and uses the tools of drawing and painting to record the visible world through my body as I paint and draw myself into it.’

Anita Fricek was born in Vienna, where she lives and works. Her work explores alternative modes of social organization, examining the structures and effects of different historical and contemporary pedagogical models and other systems of care. More recently her work has focussed on the social processes implicit in community gardens and in sustainable food production in an urban context.

Anita Fricek studied at Studio Hamilton in Florence, at CUNY, Queens College, New York and at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. She spent three years as a visiting scholar at the University of Western Sydney, Australia, received the Austrian State Stipend for Fine Arts in 2000, and has done various residencies in Europe and Australia. She has exhibited widely over the last 25 years in both solo and group exhibitions, including at the Turner Contemporary, Margate, England; MUSA, Vienna, Austria; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands; Patti and Rusty Rueff Galleries, Purdue University, United States; Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt, Germany; Sala Rekalde, Bilbao, Spain; Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, Austria; Artspace, Sydney, Australia; Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius, Lithuania; and Kuvataideakatemian Galleria, Helsinki, Finland.