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Ana-Manso

Ana-Manso-cornucopia

Ana-Manso-dragon-vein

<div><div><p>Galleria Umberto Di Marino is pleased to announce dragon vein, the fourth solo exhibition by Ana Manso and the first at its new location, Casa Di Marino, on Via Monte di Dio.</p><p>The Portuguese painter presents a recent cycle of works that mark a new chapter in her exploration of reality and memory, elements that repeat, overlap, and expand into the abstract gestures of her painting, seemingly losing their physical singularity at first glance, only to become part of a continuous flow.</p><p>Ana Manso’s work consistently challenges the limits of abstraction, experimenting with the perceptual threshold that separates it from figuration and, consequently, from the mental mechanism that reconnects it to form and light, be it objects, textures, or architectural motifs. The ambiguity in her work depends on the point of observation, on memory, on the paths within a labyrinth branching into a thousand directions, choices, and worlds. The exhibition title, dragon vein, references a fundamental principle of Feng Shui: “dragon veins” are invisible energy currents or trajectories that traverse the landscape, shaping it through subtle balances of fullness and emptiness. In Chinese geomantic tradition, these lines of force structure the natural world and determine the harmony among elements, just as Ana Manso paints in layers, creating compositions where energy is distributed without an immediately discernible logic, but rather perceived in its entirety, in its flow. If in ancient maps, Dragon Veins outlined territories imbued with meaning, in Manso’s works, every trace becomes an open possibility, a tension between form and dissolution, a labyrinth where space is built through time. Just as landscapes are shaped by unseen forces, Manso’s painting suggests real images without defining them, evoking architectures, shadows, and spatial fragments that dissolve into abstraction. From this flow emerge fleeting narratives, objects, moments, and memories layered simultaneously, rendering any attempt at linear interpretation ineffective, like in The Library of Babel.</p><p>Drawing inspiration from the landscape painting of Wang Yuanqi (1642–1715) and the cunfa (皴法, texture strokes) technique, Ana Manso embarks on the challenge of reconstructing landscapes through time. Each of her works becomes a stratified vision of memory—a landscape that does not physically exist—rather than “its fixed moment of observation.”</p><p>This “architectural” tension leads to a labyrinth where all possibilities coexist, where the undefined geometry of choices becomes inextricable, and every path leads to another without hierarchy or predetermination. Like an invisible city, like a garden of forking paths, space transforms into time, suggesting that the true structure is not the one immediately visible.</p></div></div><p> </p><div><div><p><strong>Ana Manso<br />1984, Lisbon, PT</strong></p><p>The nature of Ana Manso’s practice allows her immediate environment and the events of daily life to be absorbed into her work. By avoiding any form of narrative, time and place dissolve into a new present and multiple subjectivities, which materialize through the viewer’s present, completing the image with their own archetypes, whether political, social, or architectural in nature. It is an engaging process that often reveals unexpected and authentic encounters. Deeply connected to ideas of freedom, fantasy, and imagination, as well as a profound connection to the question of origins, it is a blend of abstraction and intimacy. It is a way of freezing events and gestures that emerge during the physical act of painting. Layers, appearances, and disappearances create images and environments that become a direct reflection of the decisions and mistakes (among other phenomena) that occur during the painting process.</p><p>Over the years, she has exhibited in numerous museums, foundations, and public and private galleries. Her most recent solo and duo exhibitions include: Espiral, Appleton, Lisbon, PT (w/André Romão) (2025); Pulso de Seda, Buraco, Lisbon, PT (w/Rudi Brito); La Table Ronde, NEVVEN, Gothenburg, SE; Menstruum, Pedro Cera, Lisbon, PT (2024); House of Tigre, Sala de Exposições / Maus Hábitos, Porto, PT – with João Marçal (2022); a room, two rooms, Kunsthalle Freeport, Porto, PT – with Max Ruf (2020); Agar, Paço Gallery, University of Minho, Braga, PT (2019); Eye Massage, Galeria Pedro Cera, Lisbon, PT (2018); accidentally touched my hair, MARQUISE, Lisbon (2018); yo-yo, Museu de Serralves, Porto, PT (2017). Her most recent group exhibitions include: Sovereign Art Prize 2023, Sociedade Nacional de Belas-Artes, Lisbon, PT; Zonas de Transição - Obras da Coleção da Fundação PLMJ, Torreão Nascente da Cordoaria Nacional, Lisbon, PT; Silvers in the Void, Mamoth, London, UK; Good evening. Do not attempt to adjust your radio. There is nothing wrong, Belo Campo, Lisbon, PT; Froggy, Gemeinschaftsgarten Landhof, Basel, CH (2023); Ningém. Só eu, Centro de Arte Oliva, São João da Madeira, PT; Il Grande Brivido, diclinazioni di uma collezione, Palazzo Doria, Borgomaro - Imperia, IT (2022); Chambre à soi, Julio Artist-run Space, Paris, FR; Entre Paredes: Futuros - Obras da coleção António Cachola, Galeria Municipal de Torres Vedras, Torres Vedras, PT; Linha do tempo - Coleção António Cachola, Centro de Artes de Sines, Sines, PT; PAINTING: OBSERVATION FIELD curated by João Pinharanda, Cristina Guerra Contemporary Art, Lisbon, PT (2021); Hier, Aujoud’hui, Demain, Mudam Luxembourg, LX (2020); A line going for a walk, MONITOR, Lisbon, PT; A musa em férias, Casa-Museu Guerra Junqueiro, Porto, PT (2019); EMA, Matadero, Madrid, ES; Serralves Collection: New Lines, Images, Objects, Serralves Museum, Porto, PT (2018); Magicians’ Right Hand, curated by Markéta Stará Condeixa, FUTURA, Prague, CZ (2016); group show, Schwarz Contemporary, Berlin, DE (2015); Prémio EDP Novos Artistas 2011, MAAT: Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, Lisbon, PT. In 2018, she participated in the residency/exchange program between Matadero Madrid – AECID and Galerias Municipais – EGEAC (El Ranchito Lisbon). In 2022, she completed the International Studio &amp; Curatorial Program in New York, with the support of the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian.</p><p><br />She has held three exhibitions at Galleria Umberto Di Marino: transition and duration (2012); ten more ten_#4, Sirena, with André Romão (2015); Tomorrow’s weather (2020); a group exhibition: Carta Canta (2023); and a special project: Grandi Gallerie 02 - Galleria Umberto Di Marino - Un posto come un altro dove appendere il cappello, Galleria d’Arte Contemporanea Osvaldo Licini, Ascoli Piceno, IT (2021).</p></div></div>

Galleria Umberto Di Marino is pleased to announce dragon vein, the fourth solo exhibition by Ana Manso and the first at its new location, Casa Di Marino, on Via Monte di Dio.The Portuguese painter presents a recent cycle of works that mark a new chapter in her exploration of reality and memory, elements that repeat, overlap, and expand into the abstract gestures of her painting, seemingly losing their physical singularity at first glance, only to become part of a continuous flow.Ana Manso’s work consistently challenges the limits of abstraction, experimenting with the perceptual threshold that separates it from figuration and, consequently, from the mental mechanism that reconnects it to form and light, be it objects, textures, or architectural motifs. The ambiguity in her work depends on the point of observation, on memory, on the paths within a labyrinth branching into a thousand directions, choices, and worlds. The exhibition title, dragon vein, references a fundamental principle of Feng Shui: “dragon veins” are invisible energy currents or trajectories that traverse the landscape, shaping it through subtle balances of fullness and emptiness. In Chinese geomantic tradition, these lines of force structure the natural world and determine the harmony among elements, just as Ana Manso paints in layers, creating compositions where energy is distributed without an immediately discernible logic, but rather perceived in its entirety, in its flow. If in ancient maps, Dragon Veins outlined territories imbued with meaning, in Manso’s works, every trace becomes an open possibility, a tension between form and dissolution, a labyrinth where space is built through time. Just as landscapes are shaped by unseen forces, Manso’s painting suggests real images without defining them, evoking architectures, shadows, and spatial fragments that dissolve into abstraction. From this flow emerge fleeting narratives, objects, moments, and memories layered simultaneously, rendering any attempt at linear interpretation ineffective, like in The Library of Babel.Drawing inspiration from the landscape painting of Wang Yuanqi (1642–1715) and the cunfa (皴法, texture strokes) technique, Ana Manso embarks on the challenge of reconstructing landscapes through time. Each of her works becomes a stratified vision of memory—a landscape that does not physically exist—rather than “its fixed moment of observation.”This “architectural” tension leads to a labyrinth where all possibilities coexist, where the undefined geometry of choices becomes inextricable, and every path leads to another without hierarchy or predetermination. Like an invisible city, like a garden of forking paths, space transforms into time, suggesting that the true structure is not the one immediately visible. Ana Manso1984, Lisbon, PTThe nature of Ana Manso’s practice allows her immediate environment and the events of daily life to be absorbed into her work. By avoiding any form of narrative, time and place dissolve into a new present and multiple subjectivities, which materialize through the viewer’s present, completing the image with their own archetypes, whether political, social, or architectural in nature. It is an engaging process that often reveals unexpected and authentic encounters. Deeply connected to ideas of freedom, fantasy, and imagination, as well as a profound connection to the question of origins, it is a blend of abstraction and intimacy. It is a way of freezing events and gestures that emerge during the physical act of painting. Layers, appearances, and disappearances create images and environments that become a direct reflection of the decisions and mistakes (among other phenomena) that occur during the painting process.Over the years, she has exhibited in numerous museums, foundations, and public and private galleries. Her most recent solo and duo exhibitions include: Espiral, Appleton, Lisbon, PT (w/André Romão) (2025); Pulso de Seda, Buraco, Lisbon, PT (w/Rudi Brito); La Table Ronde, NEVVEN, Gothenburg, SE; Menstruum, Pedro Cera, Lisbon, PT (2024); House of Tigre, Sala de Exposições / Maus Hábitos, Porto, PT – with João Marçal (2022); a room, two rooms, Kunsthalle Freeport, Porto, PT – with Max Ruf (2020); Agar, Paço Gallery, University of Minho, Braga, PT (2019); Eye Massage, Galeria Pedro Cera, Lisbon, PT (2018); accidentally touched my hair, MARQUISE, Lisbon (2018); yo-yo, Museu de Serralves, Porto, PT (2017). Her most recent group exhibitions include: Sovereign Art Prize 2023, Sociedade Nacional de Belas-Artes, Lisbon, PT; Zonas de Transição - Obras da Coleção da Fundação PLMJ, Torreão Nascente da Cordoaria Nacional, Lisbon, PT; Silvers in the Void, Mamoth, London, UK; Good evening. Do not attempt to adjust your radio. There is nothing wrong, Belo Campo, Lisbon, PT; Froggy, Gemeinschaftsgarten Landhof, Basel, CH (2023); Ningém. Só eu, Centro de Arte Oliva, São João da Madeira, PT; Il Grande Brivido, diclinazioni di uma collezione, Palazzo Doria, Borgomaro - Imperia, IT (2022); Chambre à soi, Julio Artist-run Space, Paris, FR; Entre Paredes: Futuros - Obras da coleção António Cachola, Galeria Municipal de Torres Vedras, Torres Vedras, PT; Linha do tempo - Coleção António Cachola, Centro de Artes de Sines, Sines, PT; PAINTING: OBSERVATION FIELD curated by João Pinharanda, Cristina Guerra Contemporary Art, Lisbon, PT (2021); Hier, Aujoud’hui, Demain, Mudam Luxembourg, LX (2020); A line going for a walk, MONITOR, Lisbon, PT; A musa em férias, Casa-Museu Guerra Junqueiro, Porto, PT (2019); EMA, Matadero, Madrid, ES; Serralves Collection: New Lines, Images, Objects, Serralves Museum, Porto, PT (2018); Magicians’ Right Hand, curated by Markéta Stará Condeixa, FUTURA, Prague, CZ (2016); group show, Schwarz Contemporary, Berlin, DE (2015); Prémio EDP Novos Artistas 2011, MAAT: Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, Lisbon, PT. In 2018, she participated in the residency/exchange program between Matadero Madrid – AECID and Galerias Municipais – EGEAC (El Ranchito Lisbon). In 2022, she completed the International Studio &amp; Curatorial Program in New York, with the support of the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian.She has held three exhibitions at Galleria Umberto Di Marino: transition and duration (2012); ten more ten_#4, Sirena, with André Romão (2015); Tomorrow’s weather (2020); a group exhibition: Carta Canta (2023); and a special project: Grandi Gallerie 02 - Galleria Umberto Di Marino - Un posto come un altro dove appendere il cappello, Galleria d’Arte Contemporanea Osvaldo Licini, Ascoli Piceno, IT (2021).

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cornucopia, 2025

Umberto Di Marino