Shortlist for the FLAD Drawing Award 2026

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DATE

29 Jul 2026

AUTHOR

Umbigo

Shortlist for the FLAD Drawing Award 2026

AUTHOR

Umbigo

Catarina Real, Inez Teixeira, Rudi Brito, Eduardo Matos and Tomás Cunha Ferreira make the shortlist for the FLAD Drawing Award 2026.

The five finalist artists for the 2026 FLAD Drawing Prize have now been announced. An initiative of the Luso-American Development Foundation (FLAD), the prize once again celebrates excellence and innovation in contemporary drawing practices in Portugal. Catarina Real, Inez Teixeira, Rudi Brito, Eduardo Matos and Tomás Cunha Ferreira have been selected to take part in the finalists’ exhibition, which will be on view at Drawing Room Lisboa, from 22 to 25 October, at the Sociedade Nacional de Belas-Artes in Lisbon. The winner of the Prize will be announced on 25 October during the event.

This year’s edition received more than 100 applications, from which five artists were selected to present their work at one of the leading events dedicated to contemporary drawing. In addition to the opportunity to participate in the finalists’ exhibition, each artist will receive a €2,000 production grant to support the preparation of the works presented.

The winner of the 2026 FLAD Drawing Prize will receive a €20,000 award, reinforcing FLAD’s commitment to supporting contemporary artistic creation and recognising artists working in Portugal. Established with the aim of encouraging artistic production and increasing the visibility of new trajectories and practices in the field of drawing, the Prize has become a reference within the national visual arts landscape.

The choice of drawing as the central discipline of the Prize also reflects the importance this artistic language holds within the FLAD Contemporary Art Collection, where it occupies a prominent position as a space for experimentation, research and proximity to the creative gesture. Previous editions have recognised artists including Pedro Tropa, Maria Capelo, Carla Filipe and Rosa Baptista.

Catarina Real, born in Barcelos in 1992, works at the intersection of artistic practice and theoretical research within the expanded fields of drawing, writing and choreography. Her projects explore ways of thinking about and constructing more collective forms of living, through an approach that brings together different areas of knowledge and creation.

Inez Teixeira, born in 1965, lives and works in Lisbon, where she has developed an artistic career that has been regularly presented since the 1990s. Her work focuses on painting and drawing, exploring themes such as time, transience and traces. Nature emerges in her practice as a privileged space for experience, observation and reflection.

Rudi Brito, who graduated in Fine Arts from ESAD, moved to Glasgow in 2013, where he became part of the local artistic scene, before later returning to Lisbon. His work explores the ethereal and the vulnerable through the use of materials that approach drawing beyond its traditional technical dimension.

Eduardo Matos was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1970, and lives and works in Lisbon. He grew up in Porto, where he studied and began his professional activity as an artist in 1999. He is editor of Inland Journal, curator of several projects, a former scholarship holder of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, and a founding member of Salão Olímpico.

Tomás Cunha Ferreira lives and works in Lisbon. His artistic practice establishes connections between painting and language, drawing and sound, exploring areas of deviation and free movement between different forms of expression. The artist draws on the concepts of “quasi-painting” and “quasi-word”, formulated by the monk and concrete poet Dom Sylvester Houédard, as references for thinking about different formats and supports.

The winner of the 2026 FLAD Drawing Prize will be announced on 25 October during Drawing Room Lisboa, which takes place from 22 to 25 October at the Sociedade Nacional de Belas-Artes in Lisbon. Further information about the Prize and the selection process can be found on the initiative’s website.

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