Mariana Romão
mariana.romaoo@gmail.com
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My artistic practice is born from a vital need to seek an understanding of the conscious and unconscious territories of the mind. The process of making images has become a way of transforming fear into freedom, as a gesture of both personal and outward acceptance. This complexity, difficult to translate into words, has become the driving force of my work.
Duality occupies a central place in my practice: my work moves between historical processes of photography and more intuitive, material forms of creation, between the traditional and the experimental within the field of contemporary photography. Images such as Shifting (2025), from the series Meditations (2024/25), resulting from a camera-less photographic practice, emerge as mental landscapes built through matter, light and gesture. In parallel, photographs such as First Bath of the Year (2023) explore moments of suspension, where simple gestures or everyday rituals reveal a symbolic, transformative dimension.
The darkroom has become a fundamental tool in my creative process. It is a space of retreat where I am able to reduce the world to silence and slow down. This experience of disconnection allows me to quiet my thoughts, listen to my body, and remain present. More than a photographic method, the darkroom constitutes a space of concentration and transformation.
My working process is also a response to a contemporary world marked by hyperconnectivity and constant acceleration. Paul Virilio described this condition as a "tyranny of real time," in which speed transforms our relationship to time, space and experience. Laboratory practice resists this regime through its very structure: development times, waiting in the dark, and precise, repeated gestures cannot be rushed without altering the nature of the image.
In this sense, the darkroom becomes a place where I can temporarily step away from contemporary speed and bring photography closer to other studio practices, such as painting and sculpture, through attention to matter, time and gesture.
There is something I only find in the dark. I go there on purpose. I also allow myself, from time to time, to look at the stars.
Mariana Romão (Lisbon, 1994)
Mariana Romão is a visual artist who lives and works between Paris and Lisbon. Her practice focuses on investigating the material and conceptual dimensions of the photographic image, exploring both camera-based and camera-less processes. The darkroom occupies a central place in her work, as a space of experimentation, retreat and the construction of meaning.
She graduated in Multimedia Art (2016) and completed a postgraduate specialization in Contemporary Photography Discourse (2017) at the Faculdade de Belas-Artes, University of Lisbon. Her training was also shaped by joining the team at Diamantino Labo Photo (France, 2022), a laboratory dedicated to traditional photographic processes, as well as by her ongoing experience as a photographer, lighting assistant and Digi-Op on international productions.
Winner of the Lisbon–Budapest Artistic Exchange Programme, 2022 edition, under the Twinning Agreement between the two cities, she undertook a residency at the Budapest Gallery. She received the Portuguese Emerging Art award from the Emerge Agency (2018) and 2nd Prize at the Jov'Arte Biennial (2017). In 2023, she took part in an artist residency at Culterim Gallery, in Biesenthal, Germany.
Her work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions, including Aurora at Casa Azul (2018), A Room of Her Own (Budapest, 2022), Mois du Dessin at Galerie Setze Le Parking (Paris), FBAUL 2011*21 Prémios Awards (Lisbon, 2022), Núcleo de Vídeo-Arte (Pirescouxe, 2022), Living Image 2025/26 at the Halide Project (Philadelphia), and Group Show #14 at New and Abstract gallery (Berlin).
She is currently taking part in the virtual group exhibition COLOR AS CONCEPT, curated by Ambrose Creatives, Contemporary Art Platform and Consultancy. In August 2026, she joins the group exhibition Ausstellung / Transformation, marking the opening of the Neue Bäckerei cultural space in Wiesbaden, Germany.
Exhibitions
2026
Ausstellung / Transformation, Collective Exhibition
Neue Bäckerei
Wiesbaden, Germany
Color As Concept 🔗, Collective Exhibition
Ambrose Creatives,
360° Virtual Gallery
Living Image 2025/26, Collective Exhibition
Galerie The Halide Project,
Philadelphia, United States of America
2025
Group Show #14, Collective Exhibition
New & Abstract Showroom
Berlin, Germany
Mois du Dessin
Collective Exhibition
Galerie Setze Lepartking, Paris
2023
CULTERIM, BIESENTHAL
Collective Exhibition
Culterim Gallery, Berlin
2022
FBAUL 2011*21, Prémios Awards
Collective Exhibition
Faculdade de Belas Artes de Lisboa
A room of her own Solo Pop-Up Exhibition
2 Kláuzal Tér, Budapest, Hungary
Núcleo de Vídeo-Arte, Collective Exhibition
Galeria Municipal do Castelo de Pirescouxe
2018
Aurora, Solo Exhibition
Casa Azul, Torres Vedras, Portugal
Jov’Arte Biennial, Collective Exhibition
Loures, Portugal
2017
Colectiva De. Para. De. Em Correspondência,
Collective Exhibition
Gallery of Faculdade de Belas Artes de Lisboa
A Imagem Contextualizada, Exhibition/Talk
Arquivo Municipal de Lisboa, Fotográfico
2016
Entre a Fidelidade e a Traição, Collective Exhibition
Gallery of Faculdade de Belas Artes de Lisboa
Artist Residencies
2023
Culterim Gallery, Biesenthal, Germany
2022
Budapest Gallery, Budapest, Hungary
Awards and Publications