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The finalists in the Young Artists category for the Norberto Fernandes Prize

Fundação Altice Portugal has unveiled the first of two exhibitions to promote and support artists on the national art landscape. The first edition of the Norberto Fernandes Prize, launched to foster the development of innovative projects with creative artistic lexicons, is intended to invigorate the Portuguese art scene, providing essential support for developing and raising the profile of new initiatives on the contemporary front.

The €40.000 prize for the visual arts is split into two categories: Young Artists and Art and Technology. 20 (10+10) of the 250 artists who submitted entries were selected by an Assessment Committee consisting of Adelaide Duarte, Manuel da Costa Cabral and Pedro Portugal. Over a dozen of the selected artists’ works from the first category are now on show at Fundação Altice’s Espaço Colecção in Fórum Picoas. One of these artists will be awarded €10.000 (€5.000 in cash and €5.000 euros in purchases of the artist’s work). Below is a brief rundown of the project proposals that the artists submitted, which were then shortlisted.

Just prior to entering the exhibition area, Bárbara Faden’s drawing series (Sweet Circle, 2023) can be seen in the distance. The artist adopts Louise Bourgeois’ expression “you and me” as a springboard to examine the concept of parity and the resulting dialogue or tension that emerges from interpersonal ties. Faden’s signature shapes and colour palettes provide a narrative continuum around the complexity of emotional bonds and the multiple emotional layers surrounding them. This exhibition, whose different drawings build an intimate and profound visual narrative, assumes the guise of a “tale-diary-dream”[1], poetically exploring the subtleties of the emotional sphere.

Drawing changes shape on the left. Catarina Lopes Vicente is exhibiting Sem Título (2022-23), a series featuring drawings based on tracings achieved using transfer techniques, started during her training at FLAD’s Visual Arts Course. Records of objects found in her studio, which the artist depicts through a process of transference, inscription and disclosure. As visual testimonies of hands-on gestures on paper, these lines blend shapes and memory. They constitute experimental and thoughtful compositions beyond the mere representation of the material nature of objects. The hands-on energy and movement behind them is printed, echoing a critical understanding of form and surface.

Inês Barreto’s large canvas, entitled Ponto (2024), is facing the entrance. Made in mixed media, the work is a deliberately structured chaos in which collages, colour stains, overlays, letters and lines intersect to form a dense and splintered visual narrative. The seeming chaos is a metonymy of her artistic endeavour, serving as a reflection moment – “This is the direction of my artistic path”. The deeply vibrant work harbours an energy fuelled by exploring materials and languages, the result of which is a continuous creative process in which the quest for new expressive forms and meanings comes to the fore.

Pedro Barassi displays several paintings in different formats and dimensions, including objects, creatures and landscapes that form part of the Madrugada project. This set stems from an in-depth enquiry into the “ambiguous character of the sensations coming from the fuzzy confines of insomnia”[2], a central motif in the artist’s most recent trajectory. His investigation leads to an immersive, dreamlike atmosphere linking the several paintings. Barassi’s pieces surpass his well-proven technical mastery, working in a sensitive universe where the boundaries between reality and imagination break down, encouraging onlookers to bear witness to a state in which both the unease of wakefulness and the longed-for serenity of a dream are felt.

Francisco Correia is next, with works from the Eat the Frog, Swallow the Ebb project (2023). His practice has been noted for emphasising the absurdity of the unseen systems that rule and condition contemporary society’s day-to-day life. Correia devises a sort of microcosm of semi-fictional narratives reflecting issues inherent to our times. Consisting of mock-ups of buildings in aluminium, plastic and LED lights, the installation “critically subverts the roles of the amateur and the professional, offering a twisted fantasy of office life”[3]. The interplay between reality and fiction turns into a critique mechanism that may question the artificial structures moulding society.

In his project Acto Póstumo, Samuel Ferreira displays wax sculptures – a material which, in its ability to convey time suspension and the hint of an absent bodily presence, is symbolic and strongly tied to religious rituals and votive ceremonies. This sacral nature is translated into his pieces, exploring the tensions between transience and mortality, prompting a reflection on the body’s frailty and limits. In this exhibition, with the works A Mala e um ramo de Flores (2024) and Luz (2024), the artist is seemingly posing questions on faith and the role of belief as driving forces, as well as existential and spiritual questions.

C’est quoi cette danse? is a set of six paintings by Diogo Bolota whose titles recall different positions in classical ballet. Arabesque and Grand Battement, both from 2024, are featured in it. The works all seem to imply a similarity between the bodies performing ballet choreography and the human urge to find a place and a posture in society. The same way the dancers position themselves in exact stances, the audience is expected to be faced with the question of how to position itself before an artistic piece. Bolota encourages us to reflect on the concerns surrounding time, life and death, calling forth a “need for a specific position and movement of ostentation and catharsis from these lively beings”[4] – “for what is the purpose of our lives?” [5]

Henrique Pavão’s work is known to flow through multiple media – sculpture, film, video, photography and sound -, paying constant attention to the processes and mechanisms of each medium, often using them as references to time and history. Moonshine (2023) is the sculpture chosen. Pavão has gathered silver fragments extracted from film from the labs of Cinemateca Portuguesa, turning them into a sculpture retaining the circular shape of the extraction drum. This step of reclaiming the silver and restoring material form to this waste is the crystallisation of a collective memory. “His gesture gives material shape to a memory lived out on the silver screen, the fugitive recall of a vicarious life that embeds us all in a dreaming collective.”[6]

Francisca Aires Mateus has been exploring sound, performance and collision in her work. Her practice stresses the body as a tension arena, engaging with resistance and confrontation themes. She recently presented an installation at Appleton where darkness and light flashes, along with the sounds of Muay Thai fighters, made for a powerful sensory experience. This show features LMT, a video exploring the same narrative, where the artist uses boxing gloves to fend off mud balls. Magnifying the impact sound and challenging the conventionalities of performance and the intimate relationship between sound, action and space, it touches on resistance against discourses and adversities, both physical and symbolic.

Fragile Stones is Maria Trabulo’s presented piece. The artist has compiled testimonies from Syrian archaeologists and conservators over several years, narrating their heroic deeds to rescue cultural assets from destruction during the war. These reports centre on the struggle to protect the museum in Raqqa, which was tragically lost. The struggle of these professionals to withstand destruction and oblivion emphasises not only the historical importance of cultural heritage, but also its “susceptibility to social disruption and manipulation by political ideologies”[7].

The acknowledgement of these projects through their selection for the Norberto Fernandes Award proves the remarkable potential of this current generation of artists on the national stage. The exhibition, now open, is a display of the evident artistic quality and the earnest commitment of the artists to their studies and languages. A jury formed by professor and researcher Helena Barranha, curator Isabel Carlos and curator and critic Miguel Von Hafe Pérez will now assess the projects and they will remain on show at Núcleo do Fórum Picoas until November 28.

From the Art and Technology category, the selected projects will be exhibited at Fundação Portuguesa das Comunicações – Casa do Futuro from October 19 to November 28.

 

 

[1] https://fundacao.altice.pt/arte/premio-norberto-fernandes
[2] https://fundacao.altice.pt/arte/premio-norberto-fernandes
[3] https://fundacao.altice.pt/arte/premio-norberto-fernandes
[4] https://www.diogobolota.com/cest-quoi-cette-danse
[5] https://fundacao.altice.pt/arte/premio-norberto-fernandes
[6] https://henriquepavao.com/Moonshine
[7] https://fundacao.altice.pt/arte/premio-norberto-fernandes

Maria Inês Augusto, 33, has a degree in Art History. She worked at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC) as a trainee in the Educational Services department and for 9 years at the Palácio do Correio Velho as an appraiser and cataloguer of works of art and collecting. She took part in the Postgraduate Programme in Art Markets at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of Universidade Nova de Lisboa as a guest lecturer and is currently working on a project to curate exhibitions of emerging artists. She has been producing different types of texts, from catalogues and exhibition texts to room sheets. She also collaborated with BoCA - Biennial of Contemporary Arts 2023.

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