My work often begins with an image that arrives before language. It may appear as a sensation, an atmosphere, a dream, or a fleeting vision, something that asks to be translated into form. Painting becomes the space where I follow these intuitions, allowing them to unfold and reveal what they carry. Through this process, I return to a central question: how can something deeply felt, yet unseen, take on a visible presence?Sound offers an important reference point in my practice. It has no fixed shape, yet it moves through the body and resonates on an emotional level. I am interested in whether painting can function in a similar way —How color, texture, and form might hold and transmit feeling, making the intangible gently perceptible.I am drawn to the threshold between inner and outer worlds, where memory, grief, intuition, and transformation shape our experience of reality. Rather than constructing clear narratives, I create atmospheres or situations that invites into their own interior landscapes. Within the work, light and darkness, tension and stillness, presence and absence coexist, reflecting the shifting movement between shadow and illumination that accompanies many human experiences.My process is both intuitive and reflective. Images emerge instinctively, and only through making do I begin to understand their meaning. Each work develops through a dialogue, an exchange between what appears and what is discovered. In this sense, painting becomes an act of translation: a way of giving form to emotional and psychological states that often resist articulation.At the core of my practice are las profundidades—the depths. It allows me to approach what is uncertain, hidden, or difficult to name. Within this space, something can shift, open, or transform. I think of my work as a gesture toward shared experience: a place where personal inquiry becomes collective, and where others might encounter something of their own.Ileana Moro (b. 1992, Costa Rica) is a self-taught multidisciplinary artist of Cuban and Nicaraguan heritage, currently based in Antwerp, Belgium. Her practice explores emotional and psychological landscapes through painting, approaching the canvas as a form of visual diary and reflection on inner life.The absence of human figures in her work does not signify absence of humanity; rather, she paints the emotional weather of being human—the storms, the silences, the twilight moods that pass through all of us. Her canvases can be read as portals to the soul’s inner climate.A spiritual undercurrent runs through her work. Through the interplay of shadow and light, she evokes the liminal spaces where the sacred might enter, creating thresholds. Guided by intuition, her process allows spontaneity, fluidity, and the rise of subconscious material, producing works that hover between control and surrender. By honoring mystery rather than explanation, her paintings remain open-ended, emotionally charged, and resonant with the hidden dimensions of life.BIO
SOLO SHOWS
— 2025 Himera - On the Edge of Magic Timisoara (RO)
— 2024 Lera Treyger - Inner Worlds Antwerp (BE)
— 2023 Kar Studio - Abstract Spirituality Guangzhou (CHN)
— 2021 La Collection - Thought Forms Antwerp (BE)
— 2020 Espacio Union - Haz de Luz Mexico City (CDMX)
GROUP EXHIBITION
— 2025 Verduyn Gallery Ontomateria, Moregem (BE)
— 2025 Antwerp Art Weekend ZIJ Spoor Shifting Scale Antwerp (BE)
— 2024 22Muse Gallery Antwerp (BE)
— 2024 Francis Maere Gallery Oidonk Art Festival Deinze (BE)
— 2024 Ave Gallery 5 Years Kortrijk (BE)
— 2023 Ballroom Gallery Duo Show - Like an addiction / Destrucformation Brussels (BE)
— 2023 Grege Gallery Embers and Shapes Brussels (BE)
— 2021 St. Vincents Beneath the Surface Antwerp (BE)
— 2020 Union Galeria Union Sala B-N Mexico City (CDMX) 2020
— 2020 Auction House Arte Vivo Jumex Museum Mexico City (CDMX)
— 2020 Studio IMA co-curated by Anniversary Magazine Mexico City (CDMX)
— 2020 Espacio Sabatico Contaminacion Cruzada (San Jose, Costa Rica )
RESIDENCIES
2023 ARTEVENTURA (SPAIN)
UPCOMING
— 2026 NEW SOUTH GALLERY ANTWERP
—SLAG & RX GALLERY NYC 2026 - 2027
PRESS
— 2021 VOGUE MEXICO Y LATINOAMAERICA
— 2021 SENSES BEYOND VISION / NEW NORM MAGAZINE
— 2020 MEET EVANO: ILEANA MORO
— 2022 AD MAGAZINE SPAIN, ITALY, GERMANY