Galeria Pelaires will take part at the ARCOlisboa Fair, which will take place between the 25th and 28th of May. At its stand it will present works by Ana Laura Aláez, Jorinde Voigt, Inês Zenha and Kathryn Macnaughton, all artists who have recently exhibited in Palma as part of the gallery's programme.
This is the sixth edition of ARCOlisboa, which will feature the participation of 85 galleries from 22 different countries in the General Programme and will strengthen its two main curated sections: Africa in Focus (curated by Paula Nascimento and featuring galleries from the African continent) and Opening Lisboa (curated by Chus Martínez and Luiza Teixeira de Freitas), which aims to investigate new languages and artistic spaces in order to bring new content and research to the fair.
This is the fourth time that the Pelaires Gallery has participated in ARCOlisboa, and it does so by presenting the work of four artists it represents and whose works have had a major role in its most recent programme. A 45m2 booth in which Ana Laura Aláez presents a recent work entitled Acaricia y golpe, a hanging sculpture made up of 61 polychrome resin nails, hanging from 61 threads. Jorinde Voigt is present with three small-format papers, made with Indian ink, gold leaf, pastel, oil chalk and graphite, from the Pacientia-Studie series, from 2020. Inês Zenha, special prize in the special edition, presents an installation sculpture made with glazed ceramic measuring 320 x 220 cm, which was part of the young artist's first institutional exhibition, which took place at the Kunsthalle Lissabon at the beginning of this year. In addition, Zenha presents 3 large-format paintings and a series of her characteristic drawings made in dry pastel on velvet paper, all from 2023. Finally, Kathryn Macnaughton will present a 190 x 213 cm work, a recent acrylic that represents a shift in her new way of interpreting pictorial language.
Ana Laura Aláez (Bilbao, 1964) Aláez is recognized for her multidisciplinary approach and her ability to address issues of gender, identity and public space in her work. She studied Fine Arts at the University of the Basque Country and later continued her training at the Institute of Visual Arts in New York.
Ana Laura Aláez covers a wide range of media, including installations, sculptures, photography and video. Her works often explore the relationship between the body, architectural space and the social environment. In the artist's own words, Acaricia y golpe (the work she is presenting at ARCO Lisbon) "is a shower of fragments, a timid response to those sub-works that appear in tangent within the original works. Details of a sculpture that cannot be seen from all sides in one fell swoop. It brings to mind the attempt to retain something that is escaping, as if different women's hands were passing between them a way of reading with that flow of splinters throughout history. Nails or fangs or fluctuating hair, like prostheses that help to distance ourselves from that which has not yet had enough time to pass through our own organs."
Throughout her career she has received numerous awards and recognitions for her contribution to contemporary art. Her work has been exhibited in prestigious institutions such as the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid and the Venice Biennale, among others. Her work is characterised by her conceptual approach and her ability to create visual narratives that challenge conventions and question established norms. Through her art, she invites the viewer to reflect on social and cultural issues, and to question pre-established structures and roles in society.
Born in 1977 in Frankfurt, Germany, Jorinde Voigt has achieved international recognition for her innovative approach and ability to translate abstract concepts into striking visual representations. She studied Philosophy and German Literature before embarking on her artistic career. Her academic background is reflected in her work, as she is inspired by philosophical concepts and the relationship between time, space and thought. Through a combination of drawing, painting, musical notation and graphics she creates complex compositions that explore themes such as knowledge, perception and representation.
A distinctive feature of Voigt's work is her method of visual notation. She often develops graphical systems and structures to represent abstract concepts or complex processes. Her works resemble scores or scientific diagrams, and delve into the world of patterns and structures underlying our reality.
Inês Zenha (1995, Lisbon) lives and works between Paris and Lisbon. She has recently started her relationship with Pelaires, and her work was on view for the first time at the gallery in the group exhibition "Tales disorder", opened in January and curated by Cristina Anglada. Her practice ranges from installation and painting to sculpture and ceramics, all of which she deploys as part of her ongoing research and reflection on the formal and conceptual queer representation of the body. A body laden with heteropatriarchal values, a body that strives to free itself and create a new ontology for itself. Some of her latest works have been exploring themes related to identity, desire, vulnerability and ever-changing questions about power and love. A graduate in Fine Arts from Central Saint Martins in London, she currently lives in Paris after an artist residency program she completed in 2020.
Kathryn Macnaughton (Toronto, 1985) recently had an exhibition entitled Past Pleasures at the Pelaires Cabinet space, the artist's first with the gallery. Trained and working as a graphic designer, she uses this type of "digital compression" to her advantage. When talking about her work, it is inevitable to use a typically post-analogue language: masking, superposition, blocks of colour, silhouettes. In this case, these concepts are combined with more romantic expressive movements: a doodle dances on a bust, outlined in silhouette, guiding the viewer's gaze around the flattened curves in the same way that one guides the finger around a map. The work simultaneously houses a sensuality in keeping with gender issues: like suggestions of feminine curves that play with shadows and are shown as vessels.
