Flávia Leitão

I am drawn to the challenge of expressing the human body and the ambiguous nature of the composition. I use my own body as a reference, and as a woman, I seek to create portraits that are disrupting, portraits where the subject is simultaneously unsettling, mysterious, and revealing.

Flávia Leitão is a Portuguese artist based in Porto. She studied graphic design at Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Porto, and currently works as a graphic designer. She is an interdisciplinary artist who works with art doll creation, illustration, and painting, considering herself self-taught in art. In her painting practice, she frequently uses photographic self-portraits as a reference, as she is fascinated by figurative representation.
Her favorite mediums are drawing, watercolor, and oil.
The artist uses her body as a reference to create portraits that are "disturbing, where the character is unsettling, mysterious and revealing at the same time".
She is inspired by contemporary artists such as Paula Rego, Emanuel De Sousa, and Will Rochfort.

Exhibition "Anatomy of the Irreversible", at al_859 gallery, December, 2025