Esquina Atelier is a small artist driven artist residency and gallery space in Lisbon. February 6-8 they created an event called ” Come exhibit with me” where all four residents decided on artist friends to create a group exhibition. I was lucky enough to be invited to show some paintings here in this small, cozy and fun event.
Felipe Fernandes is a graffiti artist whose name “Pura poesia” is to be seen all over Lisbon. Because of this, he is the most well known artist of the group. In this exhibition, he showed “visual poetry” which is always consisting of lines or words on dark backgrounds.
“Pain” and “poesia” are the most recurring words. I enjoyed the versatility of the supports Filipe used and the different ways he exposed the pieces- some on paper, some on textiles, some large and some very small strung together in series.
Most of all, I liked one corner where he displayed a row of artists books:
The books are made out of drawings in different sizes and papers and although the motive of the lines and words on dark were quite similar, the juxtaposition of the different papers and textures and slight variation in lines made the subtle differences clear.
The lines themselves become a coded language and the few words we can read, like “rehab notes” or “pain” sets the context. I found this an exciting inspiration for the format of the artists book I will make later in the course. It was interesting to note how important the tactile experience became with the different qualities of paper.
Marta Simoes showed some colourful landscapes in oil:
More interesting were her drawings of clouds in liquid graphite:
I believe these rather quick works could have benefited from a more careful presentation maybe.
Fransisco Marques is a more classical painter. I really loved his very dark portrait “The Old man” (with horns) painted in many layers of oil over a long period of time:
This photo really does not do the painting justice. It is alive from the incredibly richness of different tones of black.
His graphite drawing also has an incredible amount of small detail and different layers of narrative:
I was surprised by the very different feel of Francisco’s other oil painting of a sort of clay figure with a crudely drawn face:
I really liked the body of work of Constanca Sardinha, which is very different from any of my own drawings. She sits on various buses through the city of Lisbon with a pen poised over a piece of paper and lets the movements of the bus create a random drawing. I was quite captivated by the method and the delicate drawings that resulted from it. Back in the studio, Constanca interprets what she sees and feels when looking at the drawing and collages fitting words that she cuts out from old magazines or school books.
It was interesting to discover how different I felt about the drawings before and after knowing about her method. The fact of the marks being random increased their attractiveness with a strange fascination. They also had a very different impact depending on the size and the presentation alone or in small groups.
The next artist wanted to remain anonymous and presented only as “the friend of Francisco”. Apparently he always exposes his work without revealing his name to avoid being caught up in becoming popular. Possibly he is also a graffiti artist. I am not even sure he was present at the opening.
I enjoyed his rather delicate ink drawings, mainly of patterns that looked like shavings of wood in different shapes. I also really liked the way they were framed behind glass without any background.
I also really liked this portrait in subtle tones that looked like done with rubbing of charcoal, a way of drawing that I am exploring right now for part 2 of the course.
I showed some mono prints in oil that looked very different on the patterned tiles of the room:
I also showed an oilpainting of my pregnant daughter on cardboard presented on an easel:
Here I am posing with my granddaughter in front of a painting in acrylics on paper:
And at last a small painting in oil on aluminium:
It was a very fun evening and we all received so much encouraging, positive feedback. It felt really good to co-create a small event like this with other artists. This is all very, very new for me. It was only three months ago that I dared upload some of my paintings on Instagram and to actually show something live felt like a leap. This first experience was so positive though, it is definitely worth to dare and to invest some time and energy in communicating and connecting.
Clara's Drawing 2 