Galerie Nathalie Obadia in Brussels is delighted to present Shape the echo and other works, the eighth solo exhibition by Portuguese painter and graphic artist Jorge Queiroz, since the gallery first represented the artist at the Venice Biennale in 2003.
Born in 1966, Jorge Queiroz studied painting and drawing at ArCo - Centro de Arte e Comunicação Visual in Lisbon (Portugal) and continued his studies at the School of Visual Arts in New York (USA), where he obtained a Master of Fine Arts in 1999. In 2004, he was resident at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin. The artist first studied drawing techniques before exploring the medium of painting. Shape the echo and other works features a group of paintings by the artist, including five new works created especially for this exhibition.
For over thirty years, Jorge Queiroz has been creating dreamlike worlds in which the realms of the spirit and the real world intertwine. The forms are free and floating, at times morphing into hybrid bodies, emerging from the very depths of abstraction. The colour palette used is vivid and contrasting, with colours flowing freely: purples blend with yellows, blues with reds, and also various shades of green spread across the entire surface of the painting.
The five new works in the exhibition are based on an earlier drawing by Jorge Queiroz. They have been created 'like a theatre of memory' or 'an exercise of time', as the artist puts it. In each work, the succession of strokes and colours appears to resonate from one painting to another, carried forward by a sense of momentum, a dynamic continuity of shapes and reliefs. Together or individually, they are composed like imaginary landscapes.
These architectures resonate with contemporary landscape painting attributed, among others, to Georgia O'Keeffe, David Hockney, and Per Kirkeby. By revisiting this classic theme in pictorial art, these artists distinguish themselves in their ability to capture the beauty of nature, its depth and its mysteries. Jorge Queiroz aligns with this tradition, surrendering to automatic impulses in response to a distinct calling or premonition while creating his art. Like the Danish painter Per Kirkeby, his paintings evolve in layers and deposits. The eye discerns natural elements, a compilation of stones, rocks, human and animal forms, and plant life, all in constant motion. Each narrative invites us on an immersive journey, drawing us into a continuous flow of real and imagined images.
In The Tempest, Shakespeare wrote, 'We are such stuff as dreams are made of, and our little life is rounded with sleep.' Are we then caught in a dream? Shape the echo and other works accentuates this sense of temporal and pictorial flux.
