Ana Pedro

Angels Fall First

Pastel on paper

15.5½ x 12 inches

Bio:

Born in Leiria, Portugal, Ana Pedro studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Lisbon from 2012 to 2015. Since 2022, she has lived and worked in New York.Pedro presented her debut exhibition at Arbor Gallery in New York in 2024. Since then, she has participated in several exhibitions and art fairs across the Hudson Valley region of New York, as well as in Ridgefield, Connecticut.Ranging from human and pet portraiture to botanical studies, her work is primarily created using dry media such as pastels and colored pencils. For Pedro, beauty is found not in perfection but in detail. Subtle nuances in facial features—birthmarks, beauty marks, asymmetry, scars, and skin variation—are treated as defining elements of individuality and presence.Her recent solo exhibition extends this inquiry into perception and identity. The works occupy a space between representation and abstraction, transforming familiar subjects seen at extreme proximity into fields of color, texture, and pattern. This shift challenges recognition, questioning how much of an object we understand through shape versus detail, and whether identity can be read through texture and color alone.Pedro’s artworks are held in both local and international private collections.

Statement:

Created in soft pastel, this work explores the space between remembrance and the uncanny. An angel, weathered by time yet still tender in its expression, emerges from the darkness as a figure of quiet guardianship. There is something familiar about the image, but also something slightly displaced—a sense that the boundary between the earthly and the otherworldly has become momentarily thin. The muted palette, worn textures, and ghostly violet breath evoke the stillness of a nighttime cemetery, where memory can feel strangely tangible. Rather than portraying grief directly, the work considers how we leave traces of those we have lost, and how familiar symbols can take on new meanings through remembrance. The softness of pastel allows the figure to exist somewhere between solidity and fading memory, creating a scene that is both intimate and dreamlike.