LISBON.- Underdogs Gallery announced the opening of “Lost and Found” by Lisbon based design studio Pedrita. The duo is known for its contemporary and meticulous application of re-used Portuguese industrial tiles forming works of art and murals. For this specific solo exhibition they created poetic resemblances of people, depicted in photographs that were found serendipitously at random places. Their main message is: art does not have to be new to evoke contemplation or tell a story. The collection "Lost and Found" acts as a conversation piece inviting the viewer to consider individual memories, to reflect on cultural heritage and to regenerate meaning.
A small, black-and-white photograph found, by chance, in the street, with the inscription “my grandfather” scribbled on the back. This formed the starting point for this second solo exhibition by Pedrita Studio at Underdogs Gallery, referring to serendipity and poetic instants. Intentionally intersecting the analogue world and the digital world, the legacy of the past and the reality of the present, the series of panels showcased here resorts to Pedrita's original composition technique. This technique is based on the use of discontinued industrial tiles following the principle of the pixel or photographic grain.
Inspired by a set of lost (and found) images that capture mundane episodes and various expressions which are certainly familiar to us – from the drollest spontaneity to the most staged of poses –, this meticulous body of work suggests an exercise in contemplation on the ideas of loss and recovery – of our individual memories, of our collective referents, of our cultural and identitarian heritage.
If the authorial gesture that retrieves the original photographs from oblivion is accompanied by a transformative action, reconfiguring them into a new aesthetic format, the act of recovery is equally extended to the medium itself, it too salvaged from nihility and sublimated. The result of this intricate game of regeneration and reinterpretation is materialised here in a kind of open narrative itinerary where each viewer can create, through the potential connections that can be established, or found, between the various elements exhibited, their own stories – assuming that this grandfather and these people could very well be our own relatives and friends.
Pedrita is a Lisbon-based design studio founded in 2005 by Pedro Ferreira (1978) and Rita João (1978). The duo has since developed a myriad projects in collaboration with creative structures, individuals and clients from all over the world. Drawing inspiration from Portuguese traditional forms and techniques, Pedrita’s work casts an inquisitive gaze upon material culture – past and present – which they reinterpret in a sober, eloquent way.
