ANA VELEZ WAS BORN IN LISBON [PORTUGAL], IN 1982.
SHE CURRENTLY LIVES AND WORKS BETWEEN LISBON AND MADRID [SPAIN].

Portuguese visual artist Ana Velez completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Faculdade de Belas-Artes da Universidade de Lisboa [Portugal] and the Accademia Albertina delle Belle Arti di Torino [Italy], in 2007. She went on to study and was awarded a Masters of Fine Arts in Painting at the Faculdade de Belas-Artes da Universidade de Lisboa [Portugal] in 2011.

She has participated in a number of solo and group exhibitions at institutional level, and also in collective projects of urban art.
She uses drawing as a directional tool, enquiring about its multiple material possibilities, which has led her to develop work in the public space. This work has entailed a series of pictorial interventions on damaged or demolished buildings.

She addresses themes based on the concept of identity, constructed on three ideas: place, memory and body, highlighting place as the container of memory and identity.

She is co-founder and an active member of Vazarte, a multidisciplinary collective dedicated to creating reflective art projects, art spaces and urban art creations. In 2015, she also co-founded Atelier Contencioso with three other artists, with whom she shares a workspace and authorship of the artistic interventions at Rio Maravilha [Lisbon, Portugal] and the installations Mamba-de-Jameson, on the facade of Pensão Amor [Lisbon, Portugal], Das Dez ao Meio-Dia [Óbidos, Portugal], and Damasco Prateado, a project for the SONAE SIERRA Public Art Program for the new Student Residency Livensa Living Lisboa Cidade Universitária.

Her work is held in major private and institutional collections, both nationally and internationally.

Her most significant solo exhibitions include Gabinete de dibujos, Valencia [Spain, 2018], Sociedade Nacional de Belas-Artes, Lisbon [2016], Bloco103 | Contemporary Art, Lisbon [2014], and Galeria Fernando Santos, Oporto, Portugal [2008].

Her work has been commissioned for significant group exhibitions including Off-site, Portugal [2019], Premi de Pintura Internacional Guasch Coranty, Spain [2018], Past | Present | Future, Austria [2017], Périplos – Arte Portugués de Hoy, Spain [2016], Arte Hoje, Portugal [2014], Mostra Jovens Criadores’10, Portugal [2011], and others.

For important biennales such as the Bienal de Cerveira, Portugal [2018, 2017, 2013 and 2011], BIS 7.ª Bienal de São Tomé e Príncipe, Sao Tome and Principe [2013], or the Biennale JCE / Jeune Création Européenne, Portugal, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, Germany, Lithuania and France [2011/13].

She also participated in Drawing Room Madrid 2020, Spain [2020], JustLX, Portugal [2019], Hybrid Art Fair, Spain [2018], and Art Copenhagen Art Fair, Denmark [2014].

She was the recipient of an Artist Residency at BIS 7.ª Bienal de São Tomé e Príncipe, Sao Tome and Principe [2013], and at Atelier de la Résidence JCE / Jeune Création Européenne 2011/2013, France [2012].

She was awarded a Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian Support for Internationalization, Portugal [2013], and a Collezione Peggy Guggenheim Internship [Solomon R. Guggenheim, New York], Venice, Italy [2007], amongst others.