The artist Catarina Dias’s work embodies the fluidity between word and image, erosion and assemblage, and the inner and outer world. It is marked by a dense yet contemplative nature, often incorporating writing as a material form—embedded, fractured, or abraded. While drawing could be understood as a point of departure, Dias’s work deliberately sidesteps its formal constraints. Her compositions, frequently layered or developed in series, function less as resolved images than as open visual structures shaped by interruption, dissonance, and repetition.
Working with paper, textile, metal, pigment, and installation art, Dias has built a distinct oeuvre. Her recent production develops in two different directions. On one hand, she uses an archival approach, reworking images sourced from magazines, film stills, or personal collections. Through processes of selection and recombination, she reconfigures visual elements into layered compositions, built both physically and digitally. Excerpts from her own miscellany of poems, notes, or found phrases surface and dissolve, resisting linear narrative and introducing a sense of ambivalence. The images, meanwhile, evoke a cinematic suspension, often saturated with dissonance and vulnerability. On the other hand, she creates more painterly works characterized by fragmented compositions and the use of acrylic alongside other materials.
Dias’s works aren’t meant to be viewed quickly: the longer one looks, the more they reveal. Some compositions evoke a corporeal or sensual presence, exposing portions of bodies, isolated or even decontextualized elements. Others might convey a quieter form of violence, unfolding through explosions in sci-fi-like settings or landscapes. Tension emerges through opposition of dense and empty areas, visibility and obscurity. The process behind each work reflects a constant editing and reshaping of the image and its referents, close to a montage. Alongside her visual practice, Dias maintains an ongoing dialogue with the performing arts, particularly through her collaborations with dancers Sofia Dias & Vítor Roriz.
Catarina Dias was born in London in 1979 and currently lives and works in Lisbon. She completed a Master’s Degree in Fine Art from Byam Shaw School of Art, University of the Arts London (2002–2003), after completing the Advanced Course in Visual Arts at Ar.Co—Centro de Arte e Comunicação Visual, Lisbon (2001–2002).
She was nominated for the EDP Foundation’s Prémio Novos Artistas (2011) and the Prémio Revelação CELPA / Vieira da Silva (2002).
Her works have been exhibited at major institutions, including at MAAT—Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, Lisbon; Pavilhão Branco and Pavilhão Preto—Galerias Municipais de Lisboa, Lisbon; Galeria Municipal do Porto; MACE—Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Elvas; Quetzal Art Center, Vidigueira; CACC—Centro de Arte Contemporânea de Coimbra; and other spaces in Lisbon such as Rialto6, Appleton, Uppercut, Espaço Avenida, and Ar Sólido.
Dias’s work is held in public and private collections, including the MAAT / EDP Foundation Collection; the António Cachola Collection; CACE—Portuguese State Contemporary Art Collection; EGEAC / CML—Collection of the City of Lisbon; the Centro de Arte Oliva—Norlinda and José Lima Collection; the Ilídio Pinho Foundation; the Maria João and Armando Cabral Collection; and the FLAD collection.