Lisbon, Portugal, 1948.
He studied painting and architecture in the School of Fine Arts in Lisbon. He broke away from the conservatism of Portuguese art and started to work in the 70's with paint, sculpture, engraving, photography, video installations and multimedia. He has been exhibiting his work internationally since 1979, participating in Documenta and representing Portugal on several occasions in the Venice Biennale. He also presented his individual work in the Tate Gallery in London.
He is one of the most influential Portuguese artists with international projection. His work is extensive and is elaborated using various techniques of expression. His leitmotiv is emotional intimacy, physical closeness, psychological distance, absence and proximity. The role of the spectator and their involvement with the work are key to his creations. His works move between experience and memory. They present a fragmented composition, with multiple thematic and iconographic references.
In his work, the artist obsessively questions the passage of time, the power of words, the importance of the body and the desire that men generate. Narration and words play a very important role in his compositions. Literature has always occupied a fundamental role in his life and his work. For the artist, apart from being literary quotes, the texts hold the power to annex emotions, feelings and ideas. He trusts the spectator and invites them to use the power of sight and to create their own narration through what they can see.
He has held exhibitions all around the world, and his work can be found in large museums and collections on an international scale, such as the Guggenheim and the MoMA in New York, the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris and the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo. The Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid organised an extensive selection in 1999. At the beginning of 2008, the José Guerrero Center edited an ambitious catalogue that explored the artist's career with critical texts. In 2011, the CAC in Málaga gathered a representative selection of his production from the last decade that stands out due to its intimate nature and its fascination with breaking certain limits by addressing topics such as memory, sexuality, morality or duality.
He lives and works in Estoril, Portugal.
Works in the collection:
See Website