Born and raised in Lebanon, Rania Matar moved to the U.S. in 1984. Originally trained as an architect at Cornell University, she now works full time on her personal photography projects and teaches at Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Her work focuses on women and girls in the U.S and in the Middle East, with an emphasis on identity and universality.

Matar’s work has been widely exhibited, most recently at The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, Carnegie Museum of Art, National Museum for Women in the Arts, Harn Museum of Art, Howard Greenberg Gallery, The Gund Gallery at Kenyon College, Tufts University Art Gallery, East Wing Gallery Dubai, Galerie Janine Rubeiz Beirut, Galerie Eulenspiegel Basel, Lehmbruck Museum in Germany, Sharjah Art Museum, and The National Portrait Gallery in London.

Matar has received several grants and awards including a 2017 Mellon Foundation an artist-inresidency grant at The Gund Gallery at Kenyon College, a 2011 Legacy Award at the Griffin Museum of Photography, 2011 and 2007 Massachusetts Cultural Council artist fellowships, first place at the New England Photographers Biennial and Women in Photography International. In 2008 she was a finalist for the Foster Award at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, with an accompanying solo exhibition. Her work was recently selected as one of the 10 Remarkable Photographers to Discover at This Year’s AIPAD Fair.

A mid-career retrospective of Matar’s work will be exhibited at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, in a solo exhibition In Her Image, December 2017 – May 2018.

Matar’s images are in the permanent collections of several museums, institutions and private collections worldwide.

She has published three books:

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