Joana Galego

Joana Galego (b. 1994) is a Portuguese artist currently based in London. She graduated with a BA in Painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon in 2016, before continuing her studies at the Royal Drawing School, where she completed her postgraduate studies in 2017.

Galego’s practice explores emotional transformation and interpersonal relationships, with a particular focus on power, vulnerability, misunderstanding, loneliness, guilt, and the longing for connection and intimacy. Her works range from small-scale portraits depicting intimate encounters to large immersive compositions portraying figures resting, playing, embracing, or concealing themselves. Regardless of scale, her carefully considered brushwork and deliberately constructed compositions imbue the paintings with a strong psychological charge and a sense of transience — as though suspended within a parallel reality detached from everyday life.

Her solo exhibitions include: “Os Dias Mais Curtos,” 2026, Galeria Belard, Lisbon; “Flawed Telepathies,” 2025, Tube Culture Hall, Milan; “Hiding behind gifts,” 2025, Oliver Projects, London; “Seashells in my mother’s garden and the giant boulder rolling down,” 2025, Isabel Sullivan Gallery, New York; “jardins,” 2024, Galeria Belard, Lisbon; “mole lunar sinal,” 2023, Soho Revue, London; “spring and all – The Sir Denis Mahon Award Show,” 2019, Royal Drawing School, London; and “o lugar indeciso,” 2016, Museu das Artes de Sintra, Sintra.

Selected group exhibitions include: “Baroque/Rococo,” 2026, New Art Projects, London; “Drawn Together,” 2026, Royal Drawing School, London; “Entre Mulheres: Um Olhar Suspenso no Feminino,” 2026, Portuguese Parliament, Lisbon; “Table Manners,” 2026, Barbati Gallery, Venice; “Art Paris Fair with Soho Revue,” 2025, Art Paris, Paris; “Monotypes,” 2025, Messums, London; “I was carefree, green and golden,” 2024, Isabel Sullivan Gallery, New York; “Whose Muse?,” 2024, Palo Gallery, New York; and “Liminality,” 2024, EY Projects, Beijing.