Anna Maria Schönrock (born 1989, Witten, Germany) studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts, Nuremberg where she graduated in 2015 as a master student of Professor Ralph Fleck.
If one understands figuration and abstraction as two possible poles between which contemporary painterly practices can move, then Anna Maria Schönrock chooses a space in between, a third way, a back door - a form of transition between the two poles that is always in the making. The forms either dissolve through the application of paint - towards abstraction - or peel out through the application of paint - towards figuration. Painting thus becomes an experimental arrangement, similar to a research trip or an experimental arrangement, where the approximate goal is fixed but the path is not yet clear. To describe her practice, she uses the motif of the traveller: 'Explorers have been an inspiration for me. I think of men like Ernest Shackleton, who not only made an incredible journey, but continued with it when he knew it was doomed to failure. …As a painter, I find myself attracted to the incredible risks these explorers, of all types, take. It encourages me to take risks'. (Anna Maria Schönrock)