Inauguração 07/03 - 19H30
Exposição 07/03 - 01/04/12
RICARDO JORGE
“Stand by”- Exposição de Desenho
MIRJAM
“AERO”- Vídeo Instalação
“IB ART SHOW”
IB Visual Arts Programme - St Julian’s School
- Exposição Colectiva
Carmen Cousens, Francisco Zhan, India Veiga, Ivana Shantilal, Joana Freitas, Julie Myck, Maria Ramos, Miguel Cummins, Salvador Marques Taylor e Gabriella Bradell-Dawson
Continuam
Ricardo Valentim
“ESPAÇO-TEMPO E OUTRAS COISAS”
- Site Specific/Work-in progress (Fevereiro-Março)
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Ricardo Jorge
“Stand by”- Exposição de Desenho
Em Stand by olha-se para a espera, para instantes de decisão, reflexão. Momentos de crise, de ultrapassagem, de superação para cada uma das personagens… que são diferentes e a mesma. Que podem encarnar no observador por segundos ou minutos. Não se explica o que cada desenho
quer transmitir, isso depende de cada um, mas quer-se sobressaltar,
interrogar, interpelar o observador. Fala-se no feminino, de forma
frágil, premente, abusiva…mas tal pode encarar-se de forma rígida, teimosa, inquietante. Stand by tem um comando que o observador pode utilizar para mudar de frequência…desse seu estado dormente, passivo, de um
sono feliz aparente e decida o que fazer dentro de cada moldura, e
sobretudo fora dela, comentando-a.
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MIRJAM
“AERO”- Vídeo Instalação
AERO - Performance ao vivo de video art, por Mirjam e João Madeira:
dia 7 de Março às 21H e dia 31 de Março às 21H
AERO - uma performance de video art, por Mirjam e João Madeira.
«O que não pode ser nomeado, o que move tudo, o que cria. Procuramos o que se revela nesta criação: Aero.»
Aero é aquilo que nao pode ser capturado em palavras, conceitos. É o que move tudo.
É como o som, a música - a força unificadora do Aero, que, como uma obra de arte, se revela em muitas e diferentes formas.
E que, em si mesmo, não tem forma, como um jogo entre o ar e a água, os dois elementos através do qual o som viaja dentro e fora de ti, transformando o ar, a atmosfera em teu redor, e o mundo que trazes dentro.
Todo o movimento que a obra de arte Aero mostra é movido por algo que não podes ver.
Como nós próprios, Aero parece estar à procura da forma a dar ao que está presente.
Mas nunca se realiza, ficando sempre num estado e num jogo da forma, na ausência de uma forma, ou de todas.
E, ao contrário de nós, torna-se mais e mais gracioso ao longo do caminho.
Aero is that which cannot be captured in words, concepts. It is that which moves all.
It is as sound, music, the unifying force of Aero, that as a work of art, reveals itself in many different forms.
But itself, it is no-form. It is like a play between air and water, the two elements through which sound travels out and inside of you, transforming the air, the atmosphere around you and the world inside of you.
The artwork Aero shows all being moved by something one cannot see. Like us Aero seems to be searching for what form to give to that which is present. But completion never arises, all stays in a state of play of form in formlessness and, unlike us, becomes more playful and gracious as it moves along.
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“IB ART SHOW”
IB Visual Arts Programme - St Julian’s School
- Exposição Colectiva
Artistas:
Carmen Cousens, Francisco Zhan, India Veiga,
Ivana Shantilal, Joana Freitas, Julie Myck,
Maria Ramos, Miguel Cummins,
Salvador Marques Taylor e
Gabriella Bradell-Dawson
O programa International Baccalaureate em Artes Visuais no St Julian’s School baseia-se na tradição de um curso de Arte e Design com inclinação para as Belas Artes. É dada ênfase ao desenho e ao desenvolvimento de competências técnicas numa grande variedade de técnicas. Ao longo do curso, os alunos têm a oportunidade de trabalhar numa diversidade de materiais e processos, incluindo pintura, gravura, escultura, fotografia, video e (assemblage). Através de projectos estruturados e investigações pessoais independentes, são dadas aos estudantes as ferramentas artísticas que lhes permitirão trabalhar criativamente. Os alunos são constantemente orientados ao longo do processo criativo. Contudo, é-lhes dada liberdade para desenvolverem os seus interesses e temas pessoais. Tal como em todos os cursos IB, o pensamento crítico e a consciência cultural são privilegiados. No curso de Artes Visuais do IB os alunos são ensinados a reagir e reflectir acerca do trabalho de outros, observando a importância, contexto e valores estéticos das Artes de outras épocas e lugares.
O programa de Artes Visuais IB estimula a procura da qualidade de trabalho através da
experimentação e do desenvolvimento de competências e ideias num contexto de trabalho em estúdio.
The IB Visual Arts Programme at St Julian’s is based upon the traditions of an Art and Design course, with a leaning towards Fine Art. There is an emphasis on drawing, and an importance placed on
developing strong technical skills in a variety of media. Throughout the course students have the
opportunity to work in a broad range of materials and processes; these include painting, printmaking, sculpture, photography, video-work and assemblage. Through structured projects and more independent personal investigations, students are given the artistic tools to enable them to work imaginatively and creatively. At all times students are guided through the creative process; however, there is also more freedom within this course to pursue personal interests and themes. As in all the IB courses there is an emphasis on critical thinking and cultural awareness. In the Visual Art course students are taught how to respond and reflect on the work of others; they are shown the significance, context and aesthetic values of Art and Craft from other times and places.
The IB Visual Arts programme encourages the pursuit of quality through purposeful experimentation and the refinement of skills and ideas; all this is achieved within a lively studio atmosphere.
Carmen Cousens
Throughout the course I have worked around a number of themes from the exploration of textures and shapes of trees and bark to the depiction of smooth stonework and the structures of buildings.
I have explored this contrast in a number of ways; through organic, sculptural forms in clay, overlapping geometric shapes in monochromatic, two-dimensional imagery, the creation of a unified, single image from many photographic and painted views, etc. I began exploring the idea of buildings and man-made
environments being taken over or taken back by nature while I was working on an oil painting with a great deal of texture in the beginning of the course. This led to the creation of a sculpture which explored the contrast between a familiar soft, comforting object with a rough, hard, uncomfortable, surface in the form of a teddy bear with a surface of tree bark. My intent was to
explore not only the contrast between nature and man-made structures, but the disintegration of society and the way in which nature creeps in through the cracks and takes over. It was this piece that then inspired the main theme around which I have worked; the destruction and disillusion of society. Through this I was inspired to create a mixed media piece, using photographs I had taken of the Occupy protests which lead the eye of the attention of viewer on a journey around the scene, through the protests and the looming figure of St. Paul’s Cathedral. I found that I needed to adjust the scale at which I was working dramatically in order to capture the imposing structure of the cathedral and create a contrast to the fragile and human quality of the tents and people below it.
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Francisco Zhan
My work is developed around taking visual and narrative qualities from one object and applying them to another, forming new realities. My aim in this is to undermine the relationship between the form of an object and its purpose or meaning. I have created a body of work in which symbology and visual signifiers don’t necessarily make sense in an attempt reveal fallacies in our perception of reality.
Amongst the artists that have influenced me most are surrealist Max Ernst and contemporary artist Nicola Hicks.
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India Veiga
My work is intimately connected to surrealism and is inspired by dreams and deeper emotions. The relationship between life and death is very present in my pieces partly because I attempt to imagine the unknown. I have used unborn babies as a symbol for fragility and to represent the very fine line between life and death. The symbolic embryo represents the creation of a new life, and yet is extremely delicate when inside the womb and may never get to live that life. In order to explore this theme I also used the form of an egg, the tree of life and
butterflies. The IB visual art course has allowed me to specialize in skills and techniques such as: Printmaking, Painting; Drawing; Photography and sculpture in different media.
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Ivana Shantilal
Secondary school has made me realise just how much I am devoted to Art.
Culturally significant Indian and Western elements are the essence of my art work and growing up in Portugal has helped me grasp the contrasts between these two very distinct cultural worlds. I have tried to explore this theme through several media, including linoleum carving, printing into clay, copper plate etching, casting and mixed media.
Although my work is representative in nature, I have recently become
engaged in different forms of pattern- making. I have some experience in textile-processing and computer aided design, but I want to develop these skills further.
I aim to gain a broader awareness and understanding of Art, exploring new boundaries and challenging my own preconceptions.
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Joana Freitas
My work has mainly been about the imposed theme from the beginning of the IB, Structures and Environments. This was the starting point for all my pieces during the course; however the theme developed in different ways, generating completely different art pieces. Structures
and Environments have come to represent the context of my life; the
background which surrounds me, the way in which both nature and the city are influential in my life. I have experimented with a range of media & techniques in the course including sculpture, painting in oil & acrylic, printmaking (including lino carving and copper plate etching) and life drawing but the most engaging and innovative technique was casting using clay and plaster.
Researching various artists and movements was essential in developing my work, the most influential of which were Vieira da Silva, Wyndham Lewis, David Hockney, Bridget Riley and Rachel Whiteread. Although they all have completely
different styles and significance for me, I found elements in their work that
related to my ideas, some having similar starting points (Vieira da Silva and
David Hockney) and some relating more to the final results of my pieces (Wyndham Lewis and Rachel Whiteread).
My inspiration and the developing phase of my ideas come through
photographing and recording what surrounds me. I then develop these ideas and transform them into something concrete, often making the best out of my mistakes. Some pieces were developed quite
effortlessly while others were a struggle, many processes having to be repeated and changed in order for the piece to be successful. As a young artist, I believe that learning from mistakes is determinant in the development of future work.
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Julie Myck
My work is built around the ideas of ambiguity and nature. After looking at Land art and site-specific installation, I became interested in Andy Goldsworthy, especially his use of structures and colour. His creation of time-based works, which heighten the experience of viewing nature, were very interesting to me and became the inspiration for one of my main projects.
My work entitled, ‘Apples’ is a piece in which I cast ceramic apples and hung them in the branches of a tree. My apples strongly resemble natural ones but will not
degrade over time. My idea was to integrate a man-made object into nature, thus
representing the modern, materialistic world we live in and how we attempt to
re-create and control nature around us. As the tree and environment change over time, the apples will remain unchanged creating an unnatural and unsettling reality.
Creating 50 apples was not easy, thus I had to find an efficient and fairly quick
process to make them. I made molds of 3 different apples of different sizes and pressed clay into these molds. I was left with two halves of each apple, which meant that then I had to carefully push these pieces together and make sure they were well attached. Eventually, my process went from 25 / 30 minutes per apple, to about 10 / 15 minutes per apple. The most difficult part of the process was glazing the apples. If the apple was not fired at exactly the right temperature, with the precise amount of glaze, it would come out with bubbles, no shine or a dark brown colour. About 10 apples were ruined because of the glaze. It was a strange chemistry, which even after glazing 50 apples, I was not fully able to understand!
I have documented the tree over time in order to show the way in which nature changes while the apples remain the same. I have found myself taking risks and trying out new techniques and ideas with more independence. The visual arts course and my project on apples have helped me to become more open minded and changed the way I understand art as well as what I perceive to be art.
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Maria Ramos
I take a special interest in architectural structures and this is evident throughout my artwork. My aim is to capture the timeless essence of a construction, in the hopes that the pieces evoke a sense of power and elegance. I strive to communicate a sense of the development
of cities and the growth of industry, as well as some of the materialistic qualities found in humanity. These themes are personally significant, for they underline my own concerns for the environment and the way in which buildings should live in harmony with their surroundings.
I have tended to work in large scale only because it captures more successfully the overall magnitude of constructions. However, the relatively small etching prints depict the fragility of the environment and how architecture shouldn’t rise above nature but coexist in a harmonious balance. The sculptures have been more of a challenge, for I had hoped to construct relatively flawless pieces but even though the final result wasn’t perfect, it proposed the idea that artificiality is not welcomed in the human environment. The choice of white was intended to suggest innocence and fragility.
For the sculpture piece, I experimented with casting; however, there is no particular process that I feel more
connected to. I often draw with the traditional lead pencil because I feel it captures best the antiquity and delicacy of some constructions. Learning the technique of copper etching has allowed me to generate fine lines that can create both organic and linear forms.
As a source for research, I have used photography to develop my more architectural work. Visits to Lisbon, Berlin and Gredos (Spain) have permitted me to do series of sketches that I have then used as a basis for creating final pieces. In sculpture, I have developed my pieces more through experimentation with materials, which presents the freedom to create abstract forms and helps me to clarify my sentiments. Life drawing classes have given me the opportunity to study the organic forms of the human body not present in traditional architecture.
Calatrava’s fluidity of architectural forms and the way in which that parallels natural profiles has been a focus for my work while the work of Rachel Whiteread has offered a healthy contrast to Calatrava’s organic shapes. However, present in both is the element of purity that
attracts me greatly. Giovanni Piranesi and the Portuguese artist Vieira da Silva have inspired me through their use of delicate line, evoking calmness and supremacy. I was also stimulated by Wayne Thiebaud’s and David Hockney’s technical skills in painting. For me, their use of vivid colours represents our material world and consumerism.
My mixed media piece was a culmination of the techniques of pinhole photography, monotype and drawing for which my intent was to express the harmony between nature and civilization. The hardest piece to complete was the large pencil drawing, merely due to the sheer size and detail. The IB Visual Arts Course has allowed me to gain knowledge in new techniques and be able to pursue my interests freely with no constraints on the thematic focus, therefore, allowing me to enjoy working on pieces with which I feel a deep connection.
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Miguel Cummins
My main objective is to create an impact on the viewer, to make them react and feel something about what they are looking at. My work is successful if it makes the viewer stand back and think twice about what it is that I am trying to say. They may ask themselves if there is more behind my thought process for the sculpture or painting than what is initially apparent or if in fact it is simply what they see before them. I have focused on art movements that transmit unusual or abstract ideas, but not necessarily through representational depictions.
I try to make the aesthetic give form to the idea and this may lead me to a more abstract response. Looking at different artwork and movements helped me form my ideas and my decision making was very much based on creating uncertainty in my work. I mostly tried to choose materials that I was not familiar with and this made the process more interesting. As I explored new mediums I discovered unexpected solutions.
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Salvador Marques Taylor
The main theme around which I have been developing my work began
with structures, more specifically, the structure of stairs. I became
interested in how to communicate the idea of stairs without showing the actual structure after seeing a sculpture by.....Once I became interested in stairs I started noticing that nearly everywhere you look you can spot a flight of stairs. I studied the many stairs that I encountered and used pinhole photography to capture and document them. I worked with cyanotype to create images and then developed an image for a copper plate etching from the photographs. I am interested in the quality of line which can be
created through the use of dry point and etching and found that the
possibility of creating prints which could be developed in series fit my needs and interests. These initial works inspired by stairs led to my looking at feet. I realized that the presence of stairs could be implied by positioning feet
as if they were climbing the stairs even in the absence of the stairs
themselves. Another artist who I found inspiring and who deals with this notion of absence in her work is Cornelia Parker. I began trying to create pieces which dealt with the subjectivity of what the position of a foot can communicate about its environment and context. I wanted to make more feet so began experimenting with casting and sculpting materials such as plaster, mod rock, alginate and porcelain. I discovered that cast porcelain captured the details and the history of the foot through the many lines and cracks on the surface. The feet led to the need to explore ways to depict movement and light which took me back into 2D media such as painting in acrylic and oil as well as photography. And my feet have taken me full circle.
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Gabriella
Bradell-Dawson
I make art because it is an amazing relief to be able to express myself
using signifiers that are not words. Expression is not necessarily about making my work communicate what I feel. It is sometimes just expression for the sake of it – like with the line drawings that are incorporated into many of my pieces where the my pen moves across the surface without me having
any conscious sense of what it is that I am creating. It is as if I am just making complex doodles as a way of releasing the complicated turmoil of
emotions that are swirling around inside me. However with some of my work I do intend to communicate ideas and issues that I believe to be
important. With my surrealist compositions, behind my choice to juxtapose separate, often representational objects within the same piece was a rationale where I felt that that approach was the most effective way aesthetically of expressing the point I had to make about issues like our perception of beauty or our perception of reality.
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Ricardo Valentim
“ESPAÇO-TEMPO E OUTRAS COISAS”
- Site Specific/Work-in progress (Fevereiro-Março)
“[...] Olhamos um quadro de onde um pintor nos contempla. Essa ténue linha de visibilidade envolve em troca, toda uma rede complexa de incertezas, de
trocas e de evasivas. Nós estamos no lugar do seu motivo. Nós, espectadores,
estamos em excesso. Acolhidos sob esse olhar, somos por ele expulsos,
substituidos por aquilo que desde sempre se encontrava lá, antes de nós: o próprio modelo. Mas, inversamente, o olhar do pintor, dirigido para fora do quadro, aceita tantos modelos quantos espectadores lhe apareçam.”
In As palavras e as coisas, de Michel Foucault
Esta instalação veicula uma série de ciclos de acontecimentos cujos registos físicos e mentais pretendem servir de dispositivo para uma descoberta activa de significados e de sensações. O conjunto destes registos, entendidos como inscrições, é a história de um lugar itinerante que leva consigo as convergências do percurso.
A soma de experiências possíveis e a hipótese de projectar uma memória, mantêm em aberto a nossa existência.
A redundância é contrariada pela ampliação de possibilidades e o sentido indeterminado e impermanente reflecte o carácter transitório do processo.
