BRUSSELS .- Galerie Nathalie Obadia in Brussels is now opening Shape the echo and other works, the seventh 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.

Born in 1966 in Lisbon (Portugal). Lives and works in Lisbon (Portugal).

In 2022, Jorge Queiroz took part in a major exhibition To go to | Jorge Queiroz and Arshile Gorky in which his works were placed in dialogue with those of the artist Arshile Gorky at the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum (Lisbon, Portugal). The artist has also been the subject of acclaimed solo exhibitions, including Jorge Queiroz In the Serralves Collection: The Studio at the Serralves Museum (2020, Porto, Portugal), O Caso at the Pavilhao Branco (2015, Lisbon, Portugal) and What paper can support at the Horst-Janssen-Museum (2006, Oldenburg, Germany).

Jorge Queiroz takes part in numerous group shows such as Les Péninsules démarrées at FRAC Nouvelle Aquitaine MÉCA (2022, Bordeaux, France), Per amor a l'art - Collection. Ornament = Crime at Bombas Gens Centre d'Art (2017, Valencia, Spain), Vanguardas e Neovanguardas na Arte Portuguesa XX and XXI at Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea do Chiado (2016, Lisbon, Portugal), Geist und form: ten painters from Berlin at Indiana University's Grunwald Gallery of Art (2013, Bloomington, USA), Alphabet, 40 years of Ar. Co at the Museu do Chidao (2013, Lisbon, Portugal), Sous les pavés, la plage! at the Carmona e Costa Foundation (2012, Lisbon, Portugal), Le beau est toujours bizarre C. B at FRAC-Haute Normandie (2009, Sotteville-Lès-Rouen, France), Arte Portugues contemporaneo at Circulo de Bellas Artes (2006, Madrid, Spain), En Voyage at FRAC Île de France, le Plateau (2006, Paris, France), Figuração e desfiguraçãoo: inventário de gestos, narrativas e retratos at Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves (2003, Porto, Portugal).

In 2003, Jorge Queiroz was invited to participate in the 50th Venice Biennale (Italy) curated by Francesco Bonami. He also took part in the 5th Rennes Biennial (2016, France) curated by François Piron, the 4th Berlin Biennial (2006, Germany) and the 26th São Paulo Biennial (2004, Brazil) curated by Alfons Hug. His work has been awarded the Prix de Dessin by the Fondation d'art contemporain Daniel & Florence Guerlain in 2009 during the exhibition Autofictions - Contemporary Drawing at Wilhelm-Hack-Museum (Allemagne).

Jorge Queiroz's works can be found in prestigious private and public collections, including those of MoMA (New York, USA), SF-MoMA (San Francisco, USA), Musée d'Art Contemporain de Funchal (Portugal), Carré d'Art - Musée d'Art Contemporain (Nîmes, France), Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris, France), Deutsche Bank (Frankfurt, Germany), Banque Postale (Paris, France), Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves (Porto, Portugal), Fondation Calouste Gulbenkian (Lisbon, Portugal), FRAC Haute-Normandie (Sotteville-les-Rouen, France), Centre National des Arts Plastiques (Paris, France) and CaixaForum (Madrid, Spain).

Jorge Queiroz is represented by the Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris/Brussels since 2004.

Galerie Nathalie Obadia
Jorge Queiroz: Shape the echo and other works
October 26th, 2023 - December 16th, 2023