Ana Malta
Ana Malta is a visual artist who lives and works in Lisbon. Her practice is rooted in painting and explores color, pattern, composition, and drawing materials as vehicles of an intuitive and unconscious visual language.
Biography
Bio
Ana Malta was born in 1996 in Lisbon, Portugal.
Academic Carrer
She studied Painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon and holds a Master’s degree in Creative Industries Management from Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Porto.
Professional Carrer
Ana Malta is a member of the artistic collective VÊS.TRÊS and has received several distinctions, including the José Mendonça Prize for Visual Arts (2023), the MEXTO Property Investment Acquisition Prize at ARCOlisboa (2025), and recognition as a Breakthrough Artist at ArtMadrid (2024). She is a finalist of the Sovereign Portuguese Art Prize 2025. Her work has been presented at major international art fairs such as ARCOlisboa, Art Madrid, Art Paris, and the Hamptons Art Fair. She has held solo exhibitions in Lisbon, Madrid, Taiwan, and with her next exhibition to be held at This Is Not A White Cube.
Influences
Her work embraces experimentation and transformation, using “error” as a creative opportunity. Through an ongoing dialogue between intuition and structure, Ana Malta develops compositions where aesthetic tension, material exploration, and personal symbolism remain central.
Works from Ana Malta
Per Aspera Ad Astra
Ana Malta
Edition of /50
Sticker album and stickers
+ Giclée print on paper
28 × 20 cm
Both signed and numbered by the artist
2026
*Edition ships mid October
Emerging from Ana Malta’s ongoing exploration of process, transformation, and the unexpected possibilities of image-making, Per Aspera Ad Astra approaches the artwork not as something fixed, but as a space that can continue to evolve. Bringing together a print, sticker book, and series of stickers, the edition invites its owner to participate in that process: adding, moving, layering, or simply choosing to leave the image untouched.
Characteristic of Malta’s practice, colour, pattern, and intuitive gestures develop through accumulation, displacement, and the transformation of the unexpected into possibility. Here, that openness is extended beyond the artist’s hand, allowing time, choice, and participation to become part of the work. Taking its title from the Latin expression “through hardships to the stars,” Per Aspera Ad Astra embraces creation as a journey without a predetermined outcome, where each intervention opens the possibility of another direction.
BRINCAR com letras grandes
Ana Malta
Edition of /35 + 5 AP
Giclée print on paper
Signed and numbered by the artist
Velvet 270 g/m2 paper
70 × 50 cm
2025
*Artist's proofs are hand-finished.
BRINCAR com letras grandes("PLAYING in big letters") is a visually vibrant and provocative composition that delves into the ambiguity between playfulness and truth, lightness and emotional manipulation. The work confronts the viewer with a saturated visual universe - filled with childhood references, fragmented objects, and clashing textures - orchestrated within an intentional chaos.At the heart of this whirlwind lies a subtle yet loaded question: “Plena mente?” (a wordplay in Portuguese suggesting both “fully conscious” and “full of lies”). The phrase operates as both riddle and critique, questioning the social habit of saying something honest in the form of a joke - only to quickly retreat behind the phrase “just kidding” when vulnerability is exposed. A gesture that simultaneously reveals and denies.The painting becomes a reflection on dishonesty wrapped in playfulness, where a playful aesthetic is used to camouflage deeper emotional tensions. Visual elements like cherries, childlike patterns, and abrupt cutouts serve as metaphors for the desire to express honesty. “BRINCAR com letras grandes” refuses the superficiality of joking and invites a reflection on the courage it takes to stand by the truth - even when it arrives masked as laughter.
Discover other artists
Projects
Portais do Tempo
- Ana Malta
- Fidel Évora
- Inês Teles
- Márcio Carvalho
- Pedro Gramaxo
- Petra.Preta
- Raquel Belli




