Marta Soares was born in Lisbon, in 1973. She studied Fine Arts at the Faculty of Fine Arts of Lisbon. Between 1988 and 93, Soares attended the plastic arts experimental atelier, Atelier Livre, under the guidance of visual artist Pedro Morais. During this time, she made her first solo exhibition, in 1993, at Boqueirão da Praia da Galé (or Galeria Monumental II), where she exhibited a painting diary-book called “Diário de Agosto 1992 – 116 páginas para Jean Fautrier”. In 1995, she exhibited solo in the same venue, showing a large scale painting dedicated to Ad Reinhardt. Since 1997, Soares’ work has been showed regularly, namely at the Museo Extremeño e Iberoamericano de Arte Contemporaneo, in Badajoz; Museu de Arte Contemporânea, in Elvas; Módulo-Centro Difusor de Arte, in Lisbon; the Galeria Monumental, in Lisbon, amongst other museums and galleries. Marta Soares’ work is represented in the collections of Fundação Ilídio Pinho, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, amongst others. Her work has been showed regularly in art fairs in Cologne, Berlin, Brussels, Lisbon and Madrid.
Amongst her recent solo exhibitions have been: “Pinturas Arrancadas à Noite”, Galeria Francisco Fino (2018), “Vermelha”, Centro Cultural de Cascais (2017), “Matriz, Modo de Fazer”, Faculty of Fine Arts, Lisbon (2016), “Diário de Agosto”, Communications’ Foundation (2016) and “Just a Gentle Reminder”, Eletricidade Estética/ Espaço Concas (2015). Amongst her recent group shows have been: “HOMEBOUND”, Galeria Francisco Fino (2020), “A metade do céu”, Museu Arpad Szenes – Vieira da Silva (2019), “289 – Projeto de Pedro Cabrita Reis”, Espaço 289 (2018), “A Guerra como Modo de Ver”, Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Elvas (2018), “10 000 Anos Depois Entre Vénus e Marte”, Galeria Municipal do Porto (2017) and “Morphogenesis”, Galeria Francisco Fino (2017).
In Marta Soares’ work, the idea of “process” plays a pivotal role and is embodied in her paintings, where different raw surfaces participate to achieve an end result. Her work focuses on the time that mediates the final pictorial image, an engagement with the manufacturing process that anticipates the production of an image and the way these are agents in the visual outcome that the artist forwards but does not determinate. In Soares’ more recent work, the crucial relation between the images she creates and the spaces she inhabits is made very evident. These spaces carry individual and collective memories and even subjective narratives that uncover both a creative as well as material potential.