PEDRO SOUSA VIEIRAUma varanda à justa

The works of Pedro Sousa Vieira exhibited in "Uma varanda à justa" [A Balcony under the wire] can be read from their haecceity, from their distinct essence from other things, from their particularity. The very nature of these creations is thus their desire to becoming imperceptible, indiscernible and impersonal. Its territory materializes in shades that lend images – heads, landscapes, words – a floating, liquefied dimension, difficult to grasp. Drawing, sculpture or digital printing, the declinations used by the artist to construct this body of work tend to reinforce that idea of deconditioning: there is no narrative, however, behind this appearance, everything tells us a unique, existential story. There are, thus, images that seem to rotate, others that bring us the flickering of a river or a sea, a negative of a poodle – that in this inversion loses its docile look and turns into the figure of a nightmare –, ghostly characters and color, lots of color: blues, yellows, greens and reds. It is an exhibition made of sensations, sober, restrained, that needs to be read as a meditation on beauty and the sometimes bewildering forms in which beauty insinuates itself in the world.

Pedro Sousa Vieira was born in Porto (1963), where he lives and works. In 2015, he was awarded the prize 10º Prémio Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso, Museu de Amarante, Portugal. Among his recent solo exhibitions are “3,99º”, at Museu Nogueira da Silva (Braga, 2015); “A Gaze from the Back”, at Galeria Belo-Galsterer (Lisbon, 2014); “Preto no Branco”, at Espaço Chiado 8, curated by Bruno Marchand (Lisbon, 2012), “No dia anterior”, at Galeria Nuno Centeno (Porto, 2013) and at Centro Cultural Vilaflor, curated by Bruno Marchand (Guimarães, 2011). Some important group shows in which Sousa Vieria participated are: “Animália e Natureza na Colecção do CAM”, curated by Isabel Carlos for CAM/Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian (Lisbon, 2014); “À propos des lieux d’origine. Portugal agora”, curated by Clément Minighetti, Marie-Claude Beaud and Björn Dahlströml, at MUDAM – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, (Luxemburg, 2007); “Entre Linhas– Desenho na Colecção da Fundação Luso-Americana”, curated by João Silvério, at Culturgest (Lisbon, 2005), “Zoom 1986-2002 – Colecção de Arte Contemporânea Portuguesa da Fundação Luso-Americana para o Desenvolvimento: uma selecção”, curated by Manuel Castro Caldas, at Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves, (Porto, 2002) and “Linhas de Sombra”, curated by João Miguel Fernandes Jorge and Helena de Freitas, at CAM / Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian (Lisbon, 1999).