Up to the present the career of Sónia Almeida happened mainly abroad. At the start of the millennium, upon completing her Painting degree in Lisbon, Almeida began a journey that took her first to the Netherlands, then the United Kingdom, then finally the United States, and Boston, where she settled in 2008. Still, occasional incursions into the Portuguese exhibition circuit made her noticed, not least because early on Almeida started defying our expectations on what painting can still be at this point.

Using an experimental approach Almeida tests the limits of chromatic coexistence, explores junctures where different techniques meet, and tries alternative formats for her work that are not as static or rigid. At the same time her pieces deconstruct visual codes we use to state identity, trade symbols, and share knowledge. This first retrospect of Sónia Almeida’s work spans fifteen years of artistic output.