Maite de Orbe is a Spanish, London-based artist working with photography, performance and moving image. Combining these media, their practice is focused on the complexity of identity making, touching on otherness and belonging. Working collaboratively with dissident communities, de Orbe’s practice uses a documentary visual language at first that then lures into fantasy and world making to tell stories of real life through emotional textures, portraits and landscapes. As they examine rituals of contemporary culture, their work is equally raw and soft, deeply connected and fascinated with blending high vs low culture, intimacy and the sublime.

De Orbe is currently Artist in Residence at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London (2026), and is a Barbican Young Visual Artist alumni (2021-23). Their solo exhibition ‘A moment opposite to blindness’ opened at miłość gallery in May 2026 and travelled to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, in November of the same year. Their work has been shown at Frieze Art Fair, Barbican Centre, ICA, Reference Point, The Horse Hospital, Minor Attractions and Bermondsey Project Space among others. Publications include PORT Magazine, The Financial Times, The Face, Dazed, Metal Magazine, Novembre Global, BBC and It’s Nice That. De Orbe is an Associate Lecturer at London College of Communication (UAL).

She/They

@maitedeorbe

Photo by Maite de Orbe