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Belkiss Oliveira

She was born in Porto in 1964. It was during her maternal grandfather João's watercolour painting sessions that she discovered, as a child, a fascination with artistic expression, a curiosity that never left her and that would go on to shape her entire path. She trained in Business Management in Lausanne, Switzerland, and later completed a master's degree in Marketing in London. The British capital proved decisive: frequent contact with exhibitions by major contemporary artists confirmed a calling that management could not contain. Back in Portugal, she pursued an intense and diverse path of artistic learning. She worked in Jorge Curval's studio and attended courses in art history, ceramics, engraving and screen printing, building her own visual language that moves between technical precision and expressive freedom. She set up her first studio on Rua do Ouro, in Porto. In 2006 she moved to Rua do Freixo, where she continues to work today. The city of Porto is both root and stage, the place where her work matured and from which it reaches out to the world. Her presence on the exhibition circuit extends across Portugal, Spain, France, Brazil and the United Kingdom. She was part of Galeria Minimal and Por Amor à Arte Galeria, and is a member of the Projecto Núcleo de Desenvolvimento Cultural in Vila Nova de Cerveira, where she took part in organising exhibitions at República das Artes and in successive editions of the Cerveira Biennial. Belkiss Oliveira's work is marked by an ongoing questioning of memory, silence and identity. These themes run through different media and techniques, from drawing to installation, and find an echo in the many geographies where she has exhibited over more than two decades.