About the Artist
Through my work I contemplate the idea of discomfort with an aesthetic eye and, in doing so, reality reconfigures itself. And so does the discomfort. As if I had any status about it that would allow me to understand and restrain it. As if I weave it my way, with all the peace of the quiet mornings that are foreign to me.
I contemplate the dyed skin of our identity: the memory and the time behind it. The Reality, the fictions, and the impenetrable gap that rips between the two and where all the understanding that escapes us before the mirror sinks. The multiphrenia of the self, the masks. The real and built identities: the cocoons that protect us from the Other and the walls that hide us from ourselves. The fog that dampens the past and the pitch-black that blinds the days yet to come. And us. In the middle of everything. Lucid and blind. Lost, proud and naked. Trying, wonderfully, to understand.
I contemplate the discomfort and make it an aesthetic object, so it may be contemplated as well: as form, as thought, as wonder.
Ana Monteiro (b.1990) is a Portuguese figurative artist whose practice is a reflection upon the concept of the “Self”, through an aesthetic that is built around the idea of symbolism and magical realism.
She holds an MA in Painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto and a BA in Painting from the same institution and exhibits regularly since 2011.
Contemplating the kaleidoscopic features of the "self", her paintings are deeply allegoric: through them, the portrait is shaped as a symbol, in an attempt to dive into the most hidden places of the identity and understand, at each step of the way, how daunting is the task of trying to figure out what makes us human - in our relation to the Other, to the social landscape and, perhaps the most important of all, to ourselves.
Solo Exhibitions
2021
The Myth of Sisyphus - Museu Nogueira da Silva, Braga.
2019
The Uncanny - Espaço Exibicionista, Lisboa.
The Hidden Place - Ap’Arte Galeria, Porto.
2018
Flatland - Espaço Exibicionista, Lisboa.
2016
Desidentidades - Ap’Arte Galeria, Porto.
Bojador - Museu Nogueira da Silva, Braga.
2014
Do Amor e Outros Demónios - Ap’Arte Galeria, Porto.
2012
Narciso - Museu Nogueira da Silva, Braga.
Group Exhibitions
2023
Discoveries - Galerie Schwind, Berlin (Germany).
CK Contemporary: The first decade - CK Contemporary, San Francisco, (USA).
2022
Out of the Shadows - CK Contemporary, San Francisco, (USA).
2021
Storytellers - CK Contemporary, San Francisco, (USA).
2020
Dilema - Espaço Exibicionista, Lisboa.
2019
Dia D - Espaço Exibicionista, Lisboa.
Bienal de Gaia - Casa da Cultura, Alfândega da Fé.
2018
Pop Corn - Espaço Exibicionista, Lisboa.
2017
30x30 - Galeria Acervo, Lisboa.
Les uns e les autres - Ap’Arte Galeria, Porto.
Colectiva de Artistas Contemporâneos - Ap’Arte Galeria, Porto.
2016
Os Novos Paradigmas da Arte Contemporânea - Piola - Jardins, São Paulo (Brasil).
Encontros - Museu Memorial da América Latina, São Paulo (Brasil).
A Mágica da Mobilidade - Consulado de Portugal, São Paulo (Brasil).
Ano das Artes Brasil em Portugal e Portugal no Brasil - Ap’Arte Galeria, Porto.
2013
Em Suma - Museu da Faculdade de Belas Artes da UP, Porto.
2012
Match Point - Galeria Municipal do Porto, Porto.
XXV Salão de Primavera / Prémio Rainha Isabel de Bragança - Galeria de Arte do Casino Estoril, Lisboa.
2011
Sobre o Corpo - Casa-Museu Guerra Junqueiro, Porto.
2023
Art Market San Francisco - (CK Contemporary) - San Francisco, (USA).
2022
Art Market San Francisco - (CK Contemporary) - San Francisco, (USA).
Art Fairs
Comissions
2022
Mural “Origens” - Campo da Ataca, Guimarães.
2014 - 2015
Mural - dst Group, Braga.