Erika Mendes
Erika Black Mendes (Lubango, Angola, 1992) is a visual artist and Visual Arts teacher, living and working in Porto. She holds a degree in Visual Arts from the University of the Algarve (2013), completed a postgraduate program in Art and Education at Universidade Aberta, and earned a Master’s degree in Visual Arts Teaching at the University of Porto (2023). Within the BlackMendes universe, she develops a practice that crosses sculpture, textiles, assemblage, and painting. Her work investigates how an image takes form in the relationship between matter, process, and experience, before it is fully understood. Memory, body, identity, presence, and permanence traverse works marked by irregular volumes, patterns, seams, reliefs, and found materials. Her research also evokes cultural relations between Angola and Portugal, without reducing them to a single origin or reading.
