Fernando Gaspar

Fernando Gaspar

Born 1966, Portugal.

Visual artist. He began his journey through the drawing and practice of watercolor. Fully dedicated to the activity since 1986, the year in which it began to participate in shows and prizes, and to exhibit regularly in the main art galleries of the country, exploring and adopting other supports, materials and techniques.

His first solo exhibition outside Portugal took place in 1995. There have been some National Prizes, collective participations and more than 50 solo exhibitions in Portugal and abroad. Over the years, the plasticity of his work has evolved towards an increasingly reflective and contemporary approach.

Latest Solo Exhibition: “Floating Machines Series” January 2019 at Bill Lowe Gallery, Atlanta, GA, USA.

Statement

Of my work it matters the color, the trace, or no more than what is heard of them. It matters what they both say, when together or apart, present or announced, or no more than what looses them. It is important to speak of this life that stretches between two worlds, both new; of the former where we can no longer fit, the new where we stubbornly adapt. It is important to speak of this time, of this catalytic place where everything begins, again. It is important to be, to connect with the hands and the head, the certainty cured to the freshness of the becoming. And from this struggle is done the work. Figuration prevails, or abstraction reigns in defiance of the covenant. It makes clear the origin and in the next moment already wanders almost erratically dismantling the maternal mark in search of wider ways.

For we too are all this, both memory and invention, silence and noise, peace and discord. As a people and as an artist, I feel like this: in between, between. And my painting or what remains of it, apocathastic, apocalyptic, revealed, thing or nothing, is no more than the visible essay of this being, of this being so. School orphan, wild and stubborn, is born and thriving on the sweet surfaces of the paper, in the tensions of a woven linen, worked stand, palimpsest care as if smoothing the place for a ceremony. One by one, single as the first, as accomplices as a child, are always the sum of what precedes them, ways to open to the next, pieces that do not altogether separate by any universal law. It is an exercise of mine, an intimate thing that makes me understand, in order to understand myself in this kind of delusion, so deliciously.

Solo Exhibitions (selection)

2019 Floating Machines – Bill Lowe Gallery – Atlanta, GA | United States
2018 Home – Separated Land Series – Passevite – Lisboa | Portugal
2017 Mares – Fundação António Pascoal – Aveiro | Portugal
2017 Separated Land IV – Galeria São Mamede – Lisboa | Portugal
2016 Separated Land / Agartha – Bill Lowe Gallery – Atlanta, GA | United States
2015 Separated Land II – Galeria de Arte Casino Estoril – Estoril | Portugal
2014 Separated Land – Bill Lowe Gallery – Atlanta, GA | United States
2013 Argonautas – Casa Museu Teixeira Lopes – Gaia | Portugal
2013 Moving Places – Bill Lowe Gallery – Atlanta, GA | United States
2013 Zwarte Koninginnen – Rainhas Negras – Amstelkerk – Amsterdam | Netherlands
2012 Remind 25 – Cosmopolis / Centre Culturel Européen – Nantes | France
2011 Remind 25 – Museu da Cidade de Aveiro – Aveiro | Portugal
2011 Ad Infinitum / Silêncio – Consulado-Geral de Portugal – Paris | France
2009 Invisible Shapes – Alphart Gallery – Lisboa | Portugal
2008 El afecto el Tiempo y el Rio – Fundación Duero – Cáceres, Salamanca, Valladolid | Spain
2006 Ibéria – Galeria de Arte Casino Estoril – Estoril | Portugal
2000 Parcours Imaginaire – Convent des Récollets – Cognac | France
2000 Parcours Imaginaire – Staff Centre, NATO Headquarters | Brussels | Belgium
2000 Sítios da Memória – Galeria dos Coimbras – Braga | Portugal
1999 Bestiário / Touros – Enquadrar – Aveiro | Portugal
1999 Estudos para um Improviso – Galeria de Arte Casino Estoril – Estoril | Portugal
1997 Centro UNESCO – Porto | Portugal
1995 Sud – Royal Anderlecht Golf Club – Brussels | Belgium
1995 Colecções Particulares II – Staff Centre, NATO Headquarters | Brussels | Belgium
1995 Colecções Particulares I – Maison des Artistes – Anderlecht | Belgium
1991 Museu Regional de Sintra – Sintra | Portugal
1986 Galeria de Arte A Grade – Aveiro | Portugal

Group Exhibitions (selection)

2017 2ª Bienal de Arte de Gaia (Invited Artist) – Gaia | Portugal
2015 1ª Bienal de Arte de Gaia – Gaia | Portugal
2012 Sexto Sentido – Galeria 57 – Macao | China
2012 Kunstart 12 – Bolzano | Italy
2008 Artein, Art Madrid – Madrid | Spain
2001 5º Prémio Nacional de Pintura António Joaquim – Gaia | Portugal
2000 MarcaMadeira – Feira de Arte Contemporânea – Madeira | Portugal
2000 500 anos da Descoberta do Brasil – Curitiba | Brasil
2000 ArteSevilla – Feria de Arte Contemporaneo – Sevilla | Spain
1999 FAC – Feira de Arte Contemporânea – Lisboa | Portugal
1998 2º Prémio Nacional de Pintura António Joaquim – Gaia | Portugal
1997 1º Prémio Nacional de Pintura António Joaquim – Gaia | Portugal
1997 Colectiva d’Estiu – Galeria Marbelló – Barcelona | Spain
1996 Printemps Culturel – Avignon | France
1994 Muestra de Arte Portugues Contemporaneo – Barcelona | Spain
1992 Salão de Aguarela – Galeria de Arte Casino Estoril – Estoril | Portugal
1991 Lisboa – Séc. XX nas Artes Plásticas – Palácio das Galveias – Lisboa | Portugal

Awards and Distinctions

2001 National Prize | Cultura Aberta Porto 2001 | Galeria da Restauração / Porto 2001 | Porto.
2000 Honorable Mention | IV Prémio Nacional de Pintura António Joaquim | Gaia.
1998 National Prize | II Prémio Nacional de Pintura António Joaquim | Gaia.
1997 Honorable Mention | I Prémio Nacional de Pintura António Joaquim | Gaia.
1997 Honorable Mention | 10º Salão de Primavera | Galeria de Arte Casino Estoril | Estoril.
1987 Honorable Mention | 4º Salão de Primavera | Galeria de Arte Casino Estoril | Estoril.
1987 Honorable Mention | Bienal de Cerâmica de Aveiro | Aveiro.