Ana Benavides (b. 1996, Monterrey, Mexico) is a painter living and working in London. She completed an MA in Painting at the Royal College of Art in 2023.

​

Her practice is rooted in emotional exploration. Each work begins with a palette composed instinctively from memory and experience, drawing on the saturated colours of the landscapes and cultures of her childhood in Mexico. She paints intuitively, working in oil, oil pastel, wax, sand and marble powder on canvas primed with transparent gesso, so that the rawness of the ground remains.

​

Texture is central to the work. Layered surfaces invite a slower, almost tactile way of looking, and the physical, gestural process of painting is, for Benavides, a way of releasing the body from inherited roles and expectations. Her paintings become spaces for pause, release and connection.

​

Benavides has exhibited in London, Milan, Rome, Beijing, Shanghai and Dubai. In 2024 she received the Staff Prize at the Morrison Foerster Art Prize.