Joana Franco (2001, Portugal) explores how painting can blur the boundaries between people, objects, and their environment. She sees painting not just as a flat image, but as something that shares the same space with the viewer, without making hierarchical distinctions. Although painting and drawing are typically considered two-dimensional, Joana challenges this by using different materials. She combines expressive substances like wall filler and chalk with flat surfaces like rice paper and canvas. These materials have symbolic meanings that can be freely interpreted by the viewer. Joana actively involves her own body in her work. Her process explores ideas about the body and its proportionality in relation to what exists beyond itself, what it influences, and what influences it. The fact that the artist’s body converges with photography and painting can be seen as a way to bring the artistic medium and the body to the same level of thought. In this process, the body is, in a sense, transformed into an image to make them equal in concept.

Joana was selected to exhibit her work at the Rijksmuseum Twenthe, and until recently, her work was presented at the Cacaofabriek Expo in Hengelo.