Blurry Joy 1 Photograph

Brazilian photographer Ana Leal pursues themes of natural environment and contemplation in her artworks. Inspired by minimalism and the Concretism movement in Brazil, Leal pairs down her predominantly abstract photographs depicting stillness and structure. She uses both film and digital cameras to capture imagery she observes, stages or edits to invite the viewers into contemplation in the inner labyrinths of her subjects. Leal takes her audience to a timeless place of diffuse spatiality. She aims to capture the beauty of simplicity through abstraction or rendering subtle images that emphasize minutiae. Each image is printed as a solo image on materials such as paper, canvas, or aluminum, or is composed as diptychs and triptychs. Leal is a Gold Award winner on the 2020 Tokyo International Foto Awards and the 15th Julia Margaret Cameron Award Winner both in the abstract category. She also received an Honorable Mention on Prix de La Photographie Paris and on the 15th Pollux Awards as on Latin America 7. Her work has been exhibited across the United States and Brazil. She was nominated “Artist of the Future "by Contemporary Art Curator Magazine in 2020 and has been published at Envision Arts Magazine, Thought art Magazine, and Dodho Magazine. Leal (b. 1969, Brazil) currently works and lives in São Paulo, Brazil. She completed her Master of Fine Arts at Miami International University of Arts and Design (2018), and her Bachelor of Arts in photography from the Pan American School of Arts in São Paulo (2013).