About Me
Talking about love isn't lame or cringe
Bio
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Madalena Pequito (Lisbon, 1996)
Madalena Pequito is a Portuguese visual artist based in Lisboa. Studies painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisboa, did a masters in Art and Cultural Enterprise at Central Saint Martins in London, and is currently doing a Doctoral degree in Painting, financed by FCT - fundação da Ciência e Tecnologia. Her practice is grounded in painting and expands into installation, participatory and collaborative forms. Her work explores identity, cultural difference, collective memory, and the complex relationships through which individuals construct a sense of belonging.
At the centre of her works is an ongoing reflection on roots, both literal and metaphorical. Drawing parallels between the underground networks of trees and the structures of human relationships, she investigates the ways family, culture, memory, and inherited narratives shape our understanding of who we are and where we belong. Her work is also informed by the contradictions and vulnerabilities of contemporary artistic life. Sacrifice, insecurity, anxiety, fear, and uncertainty are not merely subjects within her practice, but experiences that become embedded in its visual and material language. By bringing together intimate and collective narratives, Pequito creates spaces in which questions of identity and belonging remain open, unstable, and continuously negotiated.
Madalena has exhibited internationally across Portugal, Spain, United Kingdom, United States, Italy, Macau and Budapest. Her work has been presented at Contextile Biennial in Guimarães, ArtFem Macau Biennial, Chicago Art Fair, and exhibitions in New York, Budapest, Macau, and Lisbon. she has been awarded the FLAD grant to fund her art residencies in New York artist residencies at Kunstraum LLC and Mothership. he work developed during this period culminated in the solo exhibition Shared Roots / Private Jokes at Freight+Volume Gallery in Tribeca, New York, in 2024, supported by FLAD, Instituto Camões, and the Consulate General of Portugal in New York.
Her recent solo exhibitions include Sign of the Times at SUN Lisboa (2026), Confessionários dos Dias Invisíveis at Palácio Cedofeita, Porto (2026), Só Entro com Chave at Coruchéus, Lisbon (2025) and Shared Roots / Private Jokes at Freight+Volume Gallery, New York (2024). She has also participated in numerous group exhibitions, including Back Rooms at Atmosfera M (2026), Pick a Card, Any Card at Gotham Gallery, New York (2025), The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys at Freight+Volume Gallery, New York (2023), Limpezas de Primavera at Galeria Graça Brandão, Lisbon (2023), São ou Não at Galeria de São Mamede, Lisbon (2022), AMAGAO at Galeria AMAGAO, Macau (2021), and Busman Holiday at Lábor Gallery, Budapest (2017).
Artist statement
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I painted a tree that had been cut down. And yet, its colours remained vivid and saturated because its roots were still intertwined with those of other trees. They communicate with one another, warn each other of danger, and sustain one another. Even when one is cut down, it is never forgotten. The soil knows. The other trees know.
I think of this as a metaphor for the way a family holds the memories of its members, their stories, and even their “private jokes”. It is through this sharing and transmission of memories that we construct a collective identity, made both of what we remember and what we choose to preserve.
I have been thinking a lot about the idea of sharing stories, particularly imagined ones. When we tell them, we give them a new body, a new tone, a new emotion. Would preserving every memory be an act of resistance? Or simply a refusal to allow the past to be nothing more than the past?
My practice explores questions of identity, collective memory, and cultural value. In my recent work, trees and their roots have become a reflection of human relationships: the ways in which we connect, preserve our differences, and keep alive the memory of who we are. Alongside this, I explore worlds of celebration, where memory is challenged and we can become exactly who we have always wanted to be, prioritising what truly matters: being together.
My creative process develops as a flow between words and images. Everything begins with a loose thought, a quick note in my sketchbook. At other times, the image comes before the text. Still, I see them as independent entities, because I believe in the aesthetic strength of painting in and of itself.
I am driven by colour, texture, and contrast. I am interested in exploring the tension between the unfinished and the saturation of images and textures, between what remains unrevealed and what imposes itself on the viewer. I explore patterns, movement, and organic forms, seeking to create images that capture suspended moments: the imminence of an event, the instant before something happens, a story that is still unfolding.
You already are who you once wanted to be
OMG so cheap!
Should I become a DJ?
Flying goats rule
Oh to be under the weather
I wish I could throw clouds at people
And they would just live with it
Done with the storms
Should I become a DJ? For real
At least I should try before the end of the world
Cute shoes and rings to make up
For the burn out society
Bunnies and trees
A sweatshirt of a concert I haven’t been to
And that I can’t take to school
But I think it’s cool
Madalena Pequito