Rui Sanches (b. 1954, Lisbon, Portugal) lives and works in Lisbon, Portugal. Rui Sanches studied for three years at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon, leaving the course in 1974 to join Ar.Co - Center for Art and Visual Communication, Lisbon, where he enrolled in the studios of painting and drawing. From 1977 to 1980 he studied at Goldsmiths' College, London, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts and between 1980 and 1982 he earned a Master of Fine Arts at Yale University, in the United States, with a scholarship from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. During his stay in London, he stopped painting and experimented with different media and languages, ending up dedicating himself more concretely to installation and sculpture, practices that he maintains today.

During the 1980s his work is marked by clear references to sources in the history of art from the 17th to 19th centuries. Wood and its derivatives - plywood, chipboard, etc. - are the materials of choice for the sculptor, who sometimes combine them with pipes, steel, or, from the 90s onwards, with glass or mirrors, for example. From the 90s onwards, Rui Sanches detaches himself from historical references and introduces modeled elements that were hitherto absent in his work, and explores a new construction process - the stacking of flat shapes to form a three-dimensional element. This process has since been present in most of his works. In addition to sculpture, he also develops a significant body of work in drawing.