Galeria 111 is celebrating its 55^th-year anniversary with the exhibition Beyond this Lonely Carousel.

Mostly based on a set works from 2000 to 2018, the exhibition also encompasses works from previous decades, dating back to 50s and reaching the 90s of the 20^th century.

The way the curator Hugo Dinis opted to display the works on the walls, paintings for the most part, propels the observer to establish interconnections and relationships, by means of chromatic and morphological similarities.

With António Palolo, Eduardo Nery and Fernando Direito, the first connections are formed. Perhaps due to their vibrant and histrionic colours, the works of these painters tend to approach each other. Separated by decades, they also resemble each other in the way they establish games between the painting foreground and the volume drawing.

The viewer will not be able to resist this correlation: Palolo’s geometrical evolution, through Pop lenses, is added to the usual fleeting encounters between contradictory elements, described in Nery’s integrative work, and there is also Direito, in a painting discourse that later inspired quotes from authors such as João Lopes Marques, “where nothing is as possible as its opposite”, or José Luis Peixoto: “we are positioned on the border between us and the world”.

This is followed by other interrelationships, interpenetrations, but always with works created by younger artists, side-lining these relationships as a background, providing them with a protective frame.

We have several different artists, from different generations, debating the painting foreground, gradually detaching themselves, through tiny victories, from the figurative elements. With Menez’s chromatic flowing, that intuitively transforms the painting figures in a flow of transparencies and sensuality; with Júlio Pomar, and Amor Virtuoso castigando a Fortuna (1990), which, through “dynamic diagonals” and fierce colours, emphasizes the eroticism of the feminine silhouette; with Graça Morais, and a simple drawing depicting a naturalistic motif, in what appears to be an attempt to eliminate the volume of the shape using the verticality of some of her lines; with Dourdil, for evoking the feminine form, using abstracting and equally vertical lines.

And many other artists, equally important, who must be mentioned for the sake of fairness: Paula Rego, with the work Os Desastres de Sofia (2017), of a biographical expressionism, based on vivid colours and childhood-evoking memories; Miguel Telles da Gama, with his sepia-painted watercolour motifs and graphite on paper (2000); among others – Fátima Mendonça; Joana Salvador; Joana Vasconcelos; Pedro A. H Paixão, tireless in this depiction of figures that almost vanish all over the background blur, strongly drawn using a red or black pencil; Costa Pinheiro, with works created in 1984, emphasizing an endeavour developed between the painting foreground and the representation of the architectural space; Urbano and the work Hespérides (2012); João Francisco; Noronha da Costa; Celestino Mudaulane; Alex Flemming; Rui Carvalho; Ana Vidigal; Cristina Lamas; António Seguí; João Vieira, Francisco Vidal; Barton Benes; Gonçalo Mabunda; Joana Fervença; as colagens de Lourdes Castro; Manuel Baptista; António Charrua; Victor Fortes; Leda Catunda; Ruy Leitão; Eduardo Batarda; Samuel Rama; Pedro Gomes; Rui Pedro Jorge; João Leonardo; Bartolomeu dos Santos; Arman; Nikias Skapinakis; Lisbeth Moe Nilsen; João Hogan; Jacinto Luís; Jorge Santos; Martinho Costa; Diogo Evangelista; Carlos Botelho; Marcia Xavier; Folon; Pedro Avelar; Pedro Vaz; Henrique Ruivo; Samuel Rama; Daniel Fernandes; Marcelino Vespeira; Miguel Rebelo; Gabriel Abrantes; Rui Miguel Leitão; Mauro Pinto; Lindstrom.