Ana Jotta in self-representation

Animals Words Things

Abstract

Ana Jotta (Lisbon, 1946) is a relevant Portuguese artist with good critical reception, combined with regular exhibitions since the 1980s and representation in the main Portuguese public and private collections.

The Ana Jotta brand is the aesthetic and ethical overlap between life and artistic work whose “eccentricity” she claims: to be outside the center, that is, the dynamics of the artistic scene and the market that she views from the philosophy of the cynics of Greek Antiquity. From the point of view of references, Ana is radically eclectic, moving between painting, sculpture and installation. He appreciates popular arts and loves the things she surrounds herself with, in studio houses, accumulating various memorabilia that she (re)works in successive series, in a kind of diaries that are sometimes restricted to subtle markings, and sometimes expand into an exhilarating production.

The theme of self-representation is central in Ana Jotta and has a broad reality that will be the subject of reflection in my text. As with the great practitioners of self-representation, she hides more than she reveals, but without any intention of decorum. Simply because, approaching 80 years of age, he continues, with disarming youth, to confront the opacity of life.