Portraits
2021
30 oil paintings on canvas
40 x 30 cm (each)
All paintings “Untitled” (2021)
Images © Fábio Colaço.
2021
30 oil paintings on canvas
40 x 30 cm (each)
All paintings “Untitled” (2021)
Images © Fábio Colaço.
“Portraits” series (2021) consists of a set
of portraits of leaders from different parts of the world, painted in oil on
canvas.
Contrary to what is normally assumed through an official portrait - the emanation of the power and social status of the represented - the sharpness and details of the figures are excluded through a total blur of the images that serve as a reference for the painting. The series includes a set of easily identifiable leaders with origins in different social, political and economic contexts today, however, there are still some fictional figures imagined by the artist. The paintings have neither a title nor an exact sequence of making or editing, and can therefore be shown together or singularly, thus enhancing the visual randomness they promote.
It is from this game of visual ambiguities, absence and appearance, that these portraits mark a starting point for questioning the status of power figures and the place they occupy in society.
Contrary to what is normally assumed through an official portrait - the emanation of the power and social status of the represented - the sharpness and details of the figures are excluded through a total blur of the images that serve as a reference for the painting. The series includes a set of easily identifiable leaders with origins in different social, political and economic contexts today, however, there are still some fictional figures imagined by the artist. The paintings have neither a title nor an exact sequence of making or editing, and can therefore be shown together or singularly, thus enhancing the visual randomness they promote.
It is from this game of visual ambiguities, absence and appearance, that these portraits mark a starting point for questioning the status of power figures and the place they occupy in society.