About me
Born in 1979 in Calulo, Angola.
Lives and works in Lisbon, Portugal.
Born in Angola, she left the country at an early age due to the civil war that ravaged it for 27 years. Her work remains deeply influenced by that period of her life. Access to artistic materials was extremely limited, and she had to learn to work with what was available. Fascinated by textiles, she began collecting plastic bags from second-hand markets in Luanda—the very bags used daily to ship clothing from the West and China to Africa. Both everyday objects and witnesses to colonial history and global systems of consumption, they became her first artistic medium. Later, in Lisbon, she began incorporating Portuguese lace. Long a symbol of social status, reserved for special occasions, it is now somewhat outdated but still carries the history of the country.
She arrived in Lisbon in 2002 and studied at the Ar.Co School of Art. Nine years later, she became the mother of Ester. The birth of her daughter marked a turning point in her practice: while motherhood had always been a central theme in her work, it had previously been approached from a darker perspective, shaped by constant anxieties. Ester’s birth brought serenity and calm, which she had been seeking through her art. Art was no longer only a way to escape reality. This shift is also reflected in her choice of materials: she began incorporating more delicate substances, such as lace and embroidery.
Since then, she has continued to explore new media and expand her field of representation while remaining faithful to the theme of motherhood and its related concerns: lineage and the role of women. Children often appear in her work, representing, for her, the notion of transmission. She considers them future guardians of intergenerational memory before they themselves become transmitters. Her grandmother, who taught her to embroider, is a major source of inspiration in her work on memory.
Her work reflects what she experiences, feels, and observes. Every place where she creates influences her production, and every material she encounters can inspire a new series. For her, art is a weaving: between eras, cultures, and generations; between the intimate and the political; between the real and the imaginary.
