The Art Vacancy is pleased to present its second installment of The Next Gen. The exhibition will feature: Catarina Mantero.
Catarina Mantero, b. 1988 in Lisbon, is a New York-based artist who, through her youth in Portugal, developed a deep connection to the ocean. After graduating with a degree in communication and marketing, she soon realized her true passion was painting.
Committed to pursuing her love for the arts, she enrolled in the Faculdade de Belas Artes da Universidade de Lisboa in 2012 to study painting. This was followed by an MFA at the New York Academy of Art.
Mantero is fascinated by the fluidity and mystery of the human predicament. Throughout her artistic journey she has been deeply committed to the exploration of the infinite possibilities of paint, its texture, its application, and how these aspects combine and define an image and what that image means to an audience. Through the construction of transparent layers interspersed with personal iconographies, she builds up her surfaces – and their stories – as if playing with water. Mantero looks for answers in the water, and in moments of her experience that transcend time and are never at rest, like water. Mantero brings forth allegorical compositions motivated by ideas of mortality, spirituality, and sexuality. Her work tantalizes the viewer, it continually invites questioning but never completely reveals itself, much as submerged objects, despite being distorted, are indelibly themselves.
In the past two years Mantero has been granted two Academy Scholar awards, one Golden Foundation Award, and a teaching residency at Escuela de Diseño (affiliated with Parsons) in Altos de Chavon, Dominican Republic. She has been included in numerous international group shows, including Take Home a Nude at Sothebys NYC and Art lab.munich in Germany. Her work has also been featured in Time Out Magazine and Purple Fashion Magazine. The Next Gen: Catarina Mantero will be her first solo
exhibition.
Curated by Sáng Huynh.
