Meet Eliana
Eliana Lemos is a painter working in large-scale oil painting, grounded in traditional techniques and focused on figurative and Christian subjects. Her work is informed by a background in architecture, cinema, and visual storytelling, as well as training in sacred art and human anatomy. She currently lives in Gerês, Portugal, where she develops her studio practice and documents her process through film and painting studies.
Full Biography
Eliana Lemos creates large-scale oil paintings grounded in traditional techniques, with a focus on figurative and Christian subjects.
From a very young age, she found in art her natural space of expression. She cannot remember a time without drawing, filling notebooks and even the walls of her room with imagined figures, angels, and symbolic scenes.
Despite this early connection, she initially pursued a different academic path, influenced by the belief that painting offered limited stability. She enrolled in Architecture in Lisbon, where she studied for two years, developing a strong foundation in technical drawing, live figure studies, and precise ink work. This training provided discipline and structural understanding, though she soon realized it was not her path.
She later continued her studies with a Master’s degree in Cinema, Animation, and Multimedia, moving closer to visual storytelling and narrative construction through image.
Before completing her studies, she began working as a Director of Photography, collaborating on music videos and commercial productions. She became known for her sensitivity to light, composition, and atmosphere, working alongside experienced teams early in her career. In parallel, she worked as a motion designer for international channels including Fox International, National Geographic, and Fox Life, creating visual content that often incorporated hand-drawn elements. Despite the creative scope of this work, she felt the need to return to a more direct and personal artistic practice.
Her path then took her to Asia, where she studied sacred art at the Thangka Painting Monastery and School Tsering in Boudhanath, Kathmandu. This experience marked a turning point, deepening both her technical discipline and her understanding of the spiritual dimension of painting. During this period, she also trained as a Movement teacher in New York and India, teaching for several years.
After returning to Portugal, she went through a period of personal and physical challenges that led her to study Traditional Chinese Medicine. She trained for three years in Lisbon and later at the Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, gaining extensive anatomical knowledge, including cadaver dissection. This experience significantly deepened her understanding of the human body, which continues to inform her artistic work.
In recent years, Eliana has devoted herself fully to painting, developing her practice in oil and charcoal. Her work is grounded in observation, structure, and traditional techniques, while remaining closely connected to symbolic and spiritual themes.
She currently lives in Gerês (Minho), where she works from her studio and shares her artistic process through video, documenting both studio practice and painting in nature.
