Contact
studio@anamarybilbao.com
Biography
Ana Mary Bilbao (PT/ES) was born in Lisbon (1986, Portugal). Her work explores universal themes, often addressing the intrinsic potential of the image — at its points of emergence and dissolution — to probe the fragility of the concept of truth within prevailing belief systems. Her critical perspectives frequently introduce interruption in narrative and structure in order to generate a deliberated disruption. This becomes more pronounced in her time-based works, which are developed through multiple relationships between image and sound. Using analog and digital technologies to fold and overturn perceptual experience, Bilbao’s pieces produce an unsettling register that leads to contingent interpretations, opening pathways through which we continually redefine our dogmas and codes.
Bilbao studied History of Art at the New University of Lisbon (2007, Portugal) and completed an MA in Contemporary Art at UCP — School of Arts (2016, Portugal). Awarded a doctoral scholarship by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), she completed her PhD in 2023 at the New University of Lisbon. Her doctoral thesis incorporated periods of research at the School of Arts – Birkbeck (Department of Film, Media and Cultural Studies, University of London, U.K.) and Johannesburg (South Africa) where she worked in proximity to William Kentridge’s studio, artist to whom she dedicates the final chapter.
Her extended period in New York — including her residency at the ISCP (2022) and subsequent studies in Film and Animation with Mono No Aware (2023) — marked a substantive shift in her practice, leading to a more focused engagement with the moving image. Since then, Bilbao has consolidated a practice committed to developing new temporal and perceptual frameworks, distancing itself from explanatory narrative models and prioritising the continuous recalibration of the structures that underpin her methodological approach. Bilbao’s work is always consciously subjected to processes of internal reconfiguration.
Recent solo exhibitions of Bilbao’s work have been held at ZDB - Galeria Zé dos Bois, Lisbon (2025), Galeria Avenida da Índia / Galerias Municipais – EGEAC, Lisbon (2024), Photo Basel (2023), International Studio & Curatorial Program, New York (2022), Field Projects, New York (2022), Paris Photo / Curiosa (2021), MAAT – The Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology Lisbon (2019), Opening Arco Madrid (2019), Leal Rios Foundation, Lisbon (2019), among others. The artist has had her artwork presented at venues and museums such as Anthology Film Archives, New York (org. Mono No Aware, 2023), MoMA - Museum of Modern Art, New York (org. Mono No Aware, 2023), Batalha Centro de Cinema, Porto (org. Contemporânea, 2024), MAAT– The Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, Lisbon (16.ª ed. Fuso, 2024), and Galeria Zé dos Bois, Lisbon (2025).
AnaMary Bilbao has been the recipient and/or finalist to various distinguished Portuguese awards such as: Acquisition Prize from EDP Foundation / MAAT – The Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (16.ª ed. Fuso, 2024); Grant for Studying Visual Arts Abroad from Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (2023/2024); Grant from Luso-American Development Foundation Artist Residency in the U.S.A. (2022); Finalist for the 1st edition of FLAD Drawing Award (2021); Finalist for the 13th edition of EDP Foundation’s New Artists Prize (2019); Doctorate Fellowship from Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) (2015-19).