ANA LEÇA


Portugal, 1998










 Ana Leça is a creator of tactile and pictorial universes, where every material transforms into a poetic gesture and critical thought. She unveils sensory narratives, moving through painting with the same ease that drawing breathes, sculpture finds its voice, and multimedia expands realities. In her work, the body quivers — fragile, vulnerable, in flux — and invites the viewer to probe the depths of emotion: from anguish to abandonment, from pain to longing. It is at this intersection of materials and sensations that Ana plants questions, sows doubts and harvests reflections, prompting her audience to ask why?, to revisit their own convictions, and to discover, in the mirror of art, a mirror of humanity.
Trained in Fine Arts (specialising in Textiles and Painting) at the Escola Artística Soares dos Reis and the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto, Ana has honed her skills in felting, literary illustration, sculpture, varnishing, and more.  Boldly expanding her horizons, she has attended workshops and masterclasses — from internationalising public art projects with Outdoor Arts Portugal to participating in the Arts & Crafts Festival at the Académie royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. She coordinated socio‑cultural activities at the Júlio Dinis School Group and, since 2023, has been deepening her research through a master’s in Fine Arts at FBAUP.

Ana’s exhibition history includes an Honourable Mention at the 5th Gaia International Art Biennial, alongside regular appearances in prestigious group shows in Porto, Aveiro, Guimarães and Gondomar. In 2025, the Associação de Coleções/Berardo Collection acquired her work Genetriz, marking a milestone that attests to the urgent and sincere dialogue she forges between matter, body and idea — a practice in perpetual questioning, pulsing with the imperative to feel and to transform.








ARTIST STATEMENT





In my current practice, I intertwine painting, sculpture and drawing in a dialogue of surfaces and volumes that breathe in black, white and every shade of grey. Each graphite mark, each stain of monochromatic paint, evokes skin — its texture, its fragility, its memory. It is on that threshold between smooth and rough, flat and corporeal, that I explore the boundaries of body and matter, inviting the viewer to touch with their gaze every ridge and every void.
I transform rigid supports into sensory vestiges: plaster, metal and glass receive layers that suggest epidermis and scars, allowing one to trace imaginary veins and uncover invisible narratives. In drawing, the gesture is the echo of the moment; in sculpture, the mass returns the weight of existence; in painting, the absolute contrast between light and dark establishes a poetic tension, a vibrating silence where each form is a fragment of a body that once lived and insists on whispering its stories.
I offer no answers, only fissures —cracks in the surface where questions of identity, vulnerability and metamor-phosis emerge. Brushstrokes and incisions become maps of unease, translucent wounds that remind us of our finitude and the hidden strength in organic matter. By confronting the gaze with non‑skin skins, I invite observers to feel, to question and to recognise in my work the urgent impulse to transform doubt into creation.






An artist with infinite curiosity, always seeking to feed it.









CV


SELECTED PORTFOLIO’25