Ana Prata began her career in São Paulo, where the 1980s painting scene had been predominantly dominated by male painters who favored a neo-expressionist, trans-avant-garde style. Prata’s was the first generation, following the conceptual art of the 1990s, to fully embrace painting and bring it to the forefront in the new millennium. In her work, she freely borrows a myriad of disparate references from art historical genres and movements, combining genuine reverence for the masters of the past with a tongue-in-cheek approach that gives rise, above all, to an ongoing inquiry about the nature and the possibilities of painting in the present.