About
Artist Statement
My work is a visual and written exploration of identity, embodiment, vulnerability, and transformation. Working in acrylic, drawing, mixed media, sculptural relief, poetry, and short stories, I investigate how memory, aging, intimacy, loss, resistance, and renewal accumulate within the body and soul.
Having spent much of my life studying the human body, I am now drawn to the anatomy of emotion. In my visual work, I am less interested in anatomical accuracy than in emotional truth: how inner states might be sensed through color, gesture, distortion, texture, and form.
My process is physical and layered. I build surfaces through bold color, thick impasto, scraping, abrasion, and gestural movement, allowing forms to emerge, disappear, and return. Each work becomes a negotiation between chaos and clarity, intuition and structure, control and surrender.
Writing is not separate from the visual work, but part of its architecture. My poems and short stories enter into dialogue with the paintings, deepening their emotional and symbolic resonance without closing their meaning.
My figures, still lifes, florals, and symbolic objects are not simply representations. They function as vessels of feeling: fragility, containment, resilience, decay, and renewal. Through them, I seek to honor vulnerability without resolving it, and to invite recognition rather than reduction.
Bio
Hanna Rachocka is a painter, mixed-media artist, poet, and writer based in Tampa, Florida. Born in Poland, she immigrated to the United States in 1990 and spent nearly three decades practicing internal medicine before turning to art as her primary work.
Self-directed as an artist, Rachocka works in acrylic, mixed media, heavily built impasto, sculptural relief, poetry, and short stories. Her textured surfaces often approach relief, giving physical presence to psychological and emotional states.
Drawing on myth, allegory, memory, and lived experience, Rachocka explores identity, embodiment, vulnerability, resistance, and transformation. Having once studied the inner workings of the body, she now investigates the anatomy of emotion through both image and language.
Her work has been exhibited in the Tampa Bay region and is held in private collections. She continues to develop an ongoing body of visual and written work centered on the human encounter with chaos, time, and transformation.
Selected Exhibitions
Hanna Rachocka’s work has been exhibited in the Tampa Bay region, including a solo benefit exhibition, Give Thanks, Give Back, at Carrollwood Cultural Center in Tampa, Florida. Her work has also appeared in multiple regional group exhibitions, including Vibrant Hues of Fall, Pathways, Portals, and Journeys, Narratives, Origins and Beginnings, Sky’s the Limit, and Pointillism & Beyond.
She received a Third Place Award for Hands on Deck in the 2023 Student, Faculty Art Show at Carrollwood Cultural Center. In 2025, she served as curator for Vibrant Hues of Fall for The Exhibiting Society of Artists, a large regional group exhibition featuring more than 150 works.
Curriculum Vitae
Professional Practice
Independent Studio Artist and WriterTampa, Florida
Polish-born American artist working across painting, drawing, mixed media, sculptural relief, poetry, and short fiction. Current work explores embodiment, memory, migration, aging, vulnerability, objectification, resistance, and transformation through symbolic figuration, layered surfaces, and written works that often exist in dialogue with the visual pieces.
Selected Exhibitions
Solo Exhibition
Give Thanks, Give BackCarrollwood Cultural Center, Tampa, FLSolo benefit exhibition supporting the Carrollwood Cultural Center.
Group Exhibitions
Vibrant Hues of FallThe Exhibiting Society of Artists, Tampa, FL
Student, Faculty, and Member ShowCarrollwood Cultural Center, Tampa, FL
Pathways, Portals, and JourneysCarrollwood Cultural Center, Tampa, FL
Origins and BeginningsCarrollwood Cultural Center, Tampa, FL
NarrativesCarrollwood Cultural Center, Tampa, FL
People, Places, ThingsCarrollwood Cultural Center, Tampa, FL
Sky’s the LimitCarrollwood Cultural Center, Tampa, FL
Pointillism & BeyondCarrollwood Cultural Center, Tampa, FL
Student, Faculty Art ShowCarrollwood Cultural Center, Tampa, FLThird Place Award, Hands on Deck, mixed media.
Awards
Third Place Award, Hands on Deck, mixed mediaStudent, Faculty Art Show, Carrollwood Cultural Center, Tampa, FL
Curatorial and Community-Based Art Experience
Vibrant Hues of FallThe Exhibiting Society of Artists, Tampa, FLCurator for a large regional group exhibition featuring more than 150 works by multiple artists.
New Tampa Art and Ceramics Center InitiativeTampa, FLSpearheaded a community arts advocacy initiative for the creation of dedicated visual arts, ceramics, and exhibition space in the New Tampa area. The initiative remains a future project, pending appropriate facility accommodation, community support, and institutional partnership.
Education
Medical Academy of GdańskGdańsk, PolandDoctor of Medicine, 1990
Johns Hopkins UniversityFaculty Development Program for Clinical EducatorsCurriculum Development in Women’s Health, 1997–1998
Selected Professional Background
Before committing to a full-time studio practice, Rachocka worked for nearly three decades as an internal medicine physician, with a focus on complex clinical care, women’s health, underserved communities, veteran populations, and medical education.
Internal Medicine PhysicianJames A. Haley Veterans’ HospitalTampa, FL
Medical DirectorSt. Agnes Community Care CenterBaltimore, MD
Private Practice, Internal MedicineBaltimore, MD
Resident Physician, Internal MedicineSt. Agnes Hospital / Johns Hopkins HospitalBaltimore, MD
Selected Publications
Berman JJ, Borkowski A, Rachocka H, Moore GW. “Unfounded Research: Most Common Form of Literature Contribution by Pathologists, Internists and Surgeons.” Modern Pathology, 1994.
Berman JJ, Borkowski A, Rachocka H, Moore GW. “Unfounded Research for Pathologists, Internists and Surgeons.” Southern Medical Journal, 1995.
Berman JJ, Borkowski A, Rachocka H, Moore GW. “On Value of Case Reports in Medical Research.” Southern Medical Journal, 1995.
Areas of Artistic Inquiry
Embodiment; memory; migration; aging; vulnerability; objectification; resistance; symbolic narrative; poetry; short fiction; mixed media; sculptural relief; textured painting; cycles of transformation.