Ana Leal is a visual artist whose practice emerges from an attention to pauses, absences, and the elements that resist disappearance. She explores impermanence as a fundamental condition that moves through the body, memory, and time. While photography serves as her foundation, her work extends into video and mixed-media processes—including collage, monotype, embroidery, and the use of found objects—to approach the image as a space of erosion and reconstruction rather than a fixed surface.

Her latest practice, Chão de Histórias, is a mixed-media exploration of memory, identity, and belonging rooted in the landscapes of northeastern Brazil and a previously silenced family history. In her series Encontro (Encounter), Leal superimposes ancestral portraits onto images of dry, sandy clay from the sertão region, merging body and land into a single visual field. Through this layered image-making, the soil becomes a symbolic presence that holds and transforms memory. She describes her work as a space of suspension where the past and present coexist, inviting a slower way of looking at how identity is reassembled across time.

Leal holds an MFA in Visual Arts from Miami International University of Art & Design. Her career is marked by significant international recognition, including being shortlisted for the Sony World Photography Awards (2025) and exhibiting at Somerset House in London. She has participated in major festivals and exhibitions such as PhotoFest New Zealand, Les Rencontres d'Arles in France, and the Barcelona Foto Biennale. Her work is held in the collection of the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts and has been featured in prestigious publications including Photo Vogue and L'Œil de la Photographie.

Education & Training

2018

MFA in Visual Arts, Miami International University of Art & Design, USA

2013

Professional Photography Course, Escola Panamericana de Arte e Design, Brazil

Exhibition & Projects (Selection)

2026

Photography, Wellness and Wellbeing, LACP, Los Angeles, USA

2025

Sony Photography Awards Exhibition, Somerset House, London, UK
FotoFest New Zealand, Hawke's Bay, New Zealand
FotoFeminas Projection, Rencontres d’Arles, France
Lugar que se alimenta de tempo, Galeria Lica Pedrosa, São Paulo, Brazil

2023

A Deusa Linguagem, Galeria Vermelho, São Paulo, Brazil

2021

Barcelona Foto Biennale, Spain