Sombra ao sol
[shadow in the sun]
2023
Joana Patrão + Lourdes Castro
part of Ciclo TÊTE-À-TÊTE
curated by Frederico Portas and Tomás Agostinho
Galeria Hélder Alfaiate, Ericeira
Sombra ao sol: pequeno herbário das sombras 2023
Exhibition view: Sombra ao sol (2023), Joana Patrão featuring artworks by Lourdes Castro, curated by Frederico Portas and Tomás Agostinho,
part of the exhibition program TÊTE-À-TÊTE at Galeria Hélder Alfaiate, Ericeira
Sombra ao sol marks the fifth moment of the TÊTE-À-TÊTE cycle, curated by Frederico Portas and Tomás Agostinho and design and communication by Patrícia de Almeida Gomes. Ir features four works by the artist Lourdes Castro, from the gallery's collection and private collections, and a set of original works that Joana Patrão developed with the aim of reinterpreting the creative possibilities opened up by Lourdes Castro's repertoire.
This exhibition intends to stage a dialogue — or a tête-à-tête — that takes as its starting point the Grand Herbier d'Ombres (1972), Lourdes Castro's shadow herbarium — undoubtedly inspired by Anna Atkins (botanist and photographer), considered the first woman to publish a book illustrated with photographic images, with her Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions (1853). Joana Patrão adds to the list of references the poet Emily Dickinson, with her own Herbarium (1839-1846) and her botanical poems, thus continuing the legacy started by great women artists of exaltation of Nature through the documentary record and mapping of her surrounding environment or the garden they inhabit.
In this sense, the artist presents a series of seven pictorial works guided by this look, crossing an almost scientific record of botanical species with the use of photograms. And a video, a "shadow theater", a study on the small unexpected phenomena of everyday life, which go unnoticed in the daily glare. These multimedia herbaria call for observation and amazement at "things of no importance" and propose to reconcile Nature's Time (slow on the one hand, fleeting on the other) with the presence of the human body.
[excerpts of the Press Release]
read the curatorial text
Sombra ao sol: pequeno herbário das sombras 2023
sunlight on photosensitive paper, 6 pieces, 30 x 40 cm (each)
Sombra ao sol: pequeno herbário das sombras 2023
sunlight on photosensitive paper, 6 pieces (details)
Sombra ao sol 2023 - exhibition views
First image:
[left] Joana Patrão, Do sopro e do sol (2023), sunlight on photosensitive paper, 18 x 24 cm
[right] Lourdes Castro, Porte bonheur (1962), collage and serigraphic paper on cardboard. 22.5 x 33 cm
Second image:
[left] Lourdes Castro, Teatro de sombras (1974), ink and serigraphy on tracing paper, 40 x 30 cm
[right] Lourdes Castro, Untitled (1995), serigraphy on rodhoid, 54,5 x 43,5 cm
Do sopro e do sol 2023
sunlight on photosensitive paper, 18 x 24 cm
Envolta 2023
full HD video, 9:16, 2'21'', loop
Envolta 2023
full HD video, 9:16, 2'21'', loop
Ciclo TÊTE-À-TÊTE
Special thanks to: Ana Dâmaso, Frederico Portas. Tomás Agostinho, Tiago Madaleno