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| Mara Castilho, Com A Verdade Me Enganas (With Truth You Deceive Me, photography on canvas, 83x107 cm), 2009-2017. £8,000 (ed. 3 + 1AP) |
A portrait made by an artist or self-inflicted by a mobile camera tends to be a ‘part’ of what stands to represent the ‘whole’. Mara Castilho, Emanuel de Sousa Fernandes, and Kirsty Stockdale, on a different scale and with different dynamics, engage with the image that is given by portraits on their daily artistic practice.
As self-representations made by artists’ portraits are distinctive from what a ‘selfie’ is. In the case of Mara Castilho, she brings us the unlike descriptive familiarity of materials and design inspired on the tradition of historical portraiture. She reflects upon the reform of the female condition in contemporary society through a series of self-portraits, which encompass the quintessential English rural historical environment, and that denote a tangency to the Arts and Crafts movement from the XIX century. Playing within the performance field, Mara Castilho touches and operates in more traditional mediums such as photography and video. As well, she creates a memorabilia about the transient event, while establishing a new set of principles for living and working on people lives.
Emanuel, on the other hand, with his corpulent visual expressions embodies a story about bodily manifestations and vindications of mythological and literary subjects. His self-portraits are bold accounts on something that has happened during his process of representing the person or myths that are being depicted. His paintings come to predominance while existing between a figurative form and the emulation of abstractionist effects. Emanuel is a painter who influenced by the surrounding context of what he encounter, emulates an amusing and interesting story about a (un)real incident or person.
People inner vulnerabilities, their characters and daily nuances are captured by Kirsty Stockdale in an intense and at the same time distorted way that resembles operatic shadows. Her paintings are composed by different parts of what she sees to be ‘there’ in people. Pulling out and twisting shapes her paintings give a misleading impression about one owns personal characteristics. She unveils the conscious inner thinking in a person. Kirsty brings specific forms that are assumed to be concealed into to the physical world.
Mara Castilho, Emanuel de Sousa, and Kirsty Stockdale depict detailed expressions, looks, representations and impressions of the person being depicted. They appropriate the experience, finding particular ways of being immersed in the intimacy of a represent whole in a portrait.
Produced by RUI N’ ART and Curated by Rui Cepeda Synecdoches will take place at the NO REGRETS Project space (in Hackney), between June 15th and 30th. This exhibition has the support of NO REGRETS Project.
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| Emanuel de Sousa, Untitled (acrylic and charcoal on canvas, 140 x 140 cm), 2015. £5,500 |
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| Kirsty Stockdale, Camille (palette knife, acrylic on paper, 32x42.5 cm), 2008 £2,500 |
