ANA JOTTA
Lisbon, 1946
Born in Lisbon in 1946, where she works and lives. After studying at Lisbon’s Fine Arts School and Brussels’ Ecole d’Arts Visuels de l’Abbaye de la Cambre, she made a career as an actress (1969–1980). From the 1980’s onwards, she focused her activity on the visual arts and since the early nineties has been a regular presence at major art fairs and biennales (ARCO, Brussels, Johannesburg, Barcelona, etc). In 2005, she had a retrospective exhibition at the Museu de Serralves. Ana Jotta has build her work in a sequence of breakthroughs that embody some sort of erasement: of her own previous footsteps; of modernist ideology and post-modern mythologies; and of the notion of authorship – either by deconstructing it or rebuilding it, she has attempted to dismantle the idea of a coherent or univocal style. Through a bare economy of means, her works shows a great sense of intelligence and wit. With Ana Jotta, you can always expect the unexpected.