Manuela Falcão
Manuela Falcão utilises intuitive and experimental processes of moulding, glazing and firing to imbue each of her ceramic sculptures with a distinctive identity. This series is also strongly rooted in environment, both built and organic. Some of the forms can be read as contorted roots or flora stretching out into space, whilst others have more delineated structures, interwoven like pieces of a visual puzzle with no fixed beginning or end. They are shapeshifters, at once familiar and strange, often fragmented and layered from multiple firings. They balance carefully, like branches of coral rooting themselves amidst a tidal swell or intimate artefacts tentatively brought to light. Often, Falcão works in groups or series, iterating on a specific form or structure until she finds the balance between abstract gesture and figurative suggestion, each sculpture in the collective informing the next. The hand of the artist is distinctly felt not only in the sculptures laboured surfaces but in their painterly glazes and subtle layering of colour.
Manuela Falcão (1991, Porto Alegre, Brazil) is an artist who lives and works in Lisbon. Falcão utilises intuitive and experimental processes of moulding, glazing and firing to imbue each of her ceramic sculptures with a distinctive identity and dynamism. Following a successful career in film production she completed a course in Ceramics and Painting at Ar.Co Lisbon (2020-22) and advanced course in Visual Arts at the same institution (2022-24). Recent and upcoming exhibitions include; ‘Manuela Falcão’, Encounter, Lisbon (2027), 'Dobra#1 – António Júlio Duarte X Manuela Falcão – Peso’, Appleton x Zero, Lisbon (2026), 'Artist Rooms 2025', Encounter, Lisbon (2025), Ar.Co’s Scholarships and Finalists Exhibition, Museu Bordalo Pinheiro (2024), 'Cacto-Orquídea', curated by Ana Grebler and Pedro Liñares, Lisbon (2024), 'Berlinale Talents', Berlin (2018). Alongside private collections internationally, her work is held in the Ar.CO collection (Lisbon).
