Lydia Panas is an artist working in photography and video. Her studio practice explores our collective societal relationship to women. Using a variety of approaches, her work is attentive to the psyche and what lies beneath the surface in an attempt to probe questions about who we are and what we want to become. The daughter of immigrants and raised between two continents, the notion of home has always felt elusive. Settling on seventy acres in Pennsylvania to raise her family, the natural landscape is an important element in her work.
Lydia’s work has been exhibited widely in museums and galleries in the U.S. and internationally. She has degrees from Boston College, School of Visual Arts, and New York University/International Center of Photography. She is the recipient of a Whitney Museum Independent Study Fellowship and a CFEVA Fellowship. Her photographs are represented in public and private collections including the Brooklyn Museum, Bronx Museum, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Palm Springs Art Museum, Allentown Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Photography Chicago, Museum of Photographic Arts San Diego, and the Sheldon Museum among others. She has two monographs, “Falling from Grace” (Conveyor Arts 2016) and “The Mark of Abel” (Kehrer Verlag 2012) which was named a best coffee table book by the Daily Beast. She divides her time between Kutztown, Pennsylvania and New York, New York.
Lydia has received many honors including a nomination for Prix Pictet and PDN Top 30. She was twice selected for the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize Exhibition. Awards include First Place for Single Image from CENTER, Santa Fe, Top Fifty in Photolucida Critical Mass Competition, Winner of the London Calling Competition among others. Grants include ten Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts, a John Anson Kittredge Educational Grant and a Puffin Foundation Grant. Her photographs have appeared in many publications including The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Photo District News, Popular Photography, San Francisco Chronicle, Rain Taxi Review of Books, Flavorpill, WJS Blog, GEO Wissen, Die Voklskrant, Haaretz, Philadelphia Inquirer, French Photo, The Village Voice among others.
She divides her time between Kutztown, Pennsylvania and New York, New York