Catarina Botelho

Lisbon, 1981. She lives and works in Lisbon. Catarina Botelho received her BFA from the Universidade de Lisboa in 2004. One year later, in 2005, she was one of the participants of the Advanced Course in Visual Arts at Maumaus – School of Visual Arts in Lisbon. In 2007, she took the Advanced Course in Photography at AR.CO Lisboa and she also attended the Photography Course from the Gulbenkian Creativity and Creation Programme organized by Gulbenkian Foundation. Currently, she is taking part in the Independent Studies Program at the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA). Artist-in-residence at the Associação Aoje/Galeria Ponta d’Praia in São Vicente (Cabo Verde) with the support of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (2015). She took part in the workshop/artistic residence Una ficción en la realidad (Arte, política y arquitectura) at Fundación Botín (2014). Artist-in-Residence in FAAP in São Paulo (2013). In 2012, she was selected for the European Photo Exhibition Award granted by the Deichtorhallen International Kunts und Photographie (Hamburg, 2012). She was a nominated artist for the Edp New Artists Prize in 2011 and also for the Plat(T)form 10 Winterthur Museum in 2010. In 2007 she received the Bes Revelation Prize and her work is shown at Fundação de Serralves (Oporto). From 2005, Botelho has shown her work in several solo exhibitions such as: Cidade Partida at Galería silvestre (Tarragona, 2017); Horas Extraordinárias at Galeria Presença (Oporto, 2016); À sombra do sol at Galería silvestre (Madrid, 2016); Memória Descritiva at Appleton Square (Lisbon, 2015); Estrangeira aqui como em toda a parte at Galeria Caroline Pagés (Lisbon, 2015); O outro nome das coisas at Galeria Presença (Oporto, 2013); Contratempo at Galería Mercedes Viegas (Rio de Janeiro, 2013); O Tempo e o Modo at Galería Elba Benítez en Kvadrat (PHoto España, Madrid, 2012) or Propriedade Horizontal at Galería Fonseca Macedo (Ponta Delgada, 2011). Among her group shows, we would like to highlight: Quote / Unquote - obras da Coleção de Arte da Fundação EDP at Galeria Municipal do Porto (Oporto, 2017); Da Fuga e do Encontro: Inversões do Olhar -Espaço Novo Banco (antiguo BES) - ( Lisbon, 2016 ); 16th Xira’sBienal de Fotografía de Vila Franca de Xira en el Museu do Neorealismo (Xira, 2016); Já reparaste como o ponto de interrogação parece uma orelha, e como a interrogação se faz escuta? at Atelier Museu Julio Pomar (Lisbon, 2016), Do We Dream Every Night? at Appleton Square (Lisbon, 2015), As Margens dos Mares at Sesc Pinheiros (São Paulo, 2015), Una ficción en la realidad at Villa Iris - Fundation Botín (Santander, 2014), 14º Cycle of Exhibitions at Carpe Diem (Lisbon, 2013), ARCO –Madrid Art Fair with Galería Fonseca Macedo (2013), European Photo Exhibiiton Award at the Deichtorhallen International Kunts und Photographie (Hamburg, 2012), Olhares Contemporâneos at the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga (Lisbon, 2012), 50 años de fotografía portuguesa en la colección Foto Colectania at Sala San Benito (Valladolid, 2011). Her work is part of collections such as MAAT, Fundação EDP, BES/Banco Espírito Santo, Fundação Foto Colectania, Colecção Américo Santos, Fundação PLMJ, Colecção Governo Regional dos Açores. Quoting the reflection that Nuno Crespo wrote in Between Us and the Words about Catarina Botelho’s work, we can say that “this artist’s photographs make no claim to the status of objectivity, frontality and rigour of the photographic document, just as they do not search for representational veracity.(…) What is at stake here is not some kind of moralism or photographic ethics, but rather the knowledge that the image is a synthesis of the various possible (visual, auditory, tactile, emotional, rational) approaches to reality. That implies the immediate identification, in the image, of the power to bring about all sensitive and intellectual syntheses, as well as of the image’s evocative power. An image, like a word, is evocative of sounds, smells, textures and depths; such is the level of imagetic intensity that Catarina Botelho looks for in each new work. (…)“