Artist talk: “Classic VS Collage” by Luís Almeida

About

Focusing on drawing and its possibilities, Luís Almeida often realizes large pieces ranging from a meticulous to gestural approach and aiming at reaching a powerful visual presence to be felt simultaneously with the mind and the body.
As the artist states, he tries to create “something that brings us together," not only calling for the senses and intellect but also connecting time and space, past and present. Indeed, in his recent works, Luís often revisits classical paintings, reproducing them on a different scale and with other mediums.
On another hand, his collage works usually start with superposing five or more sheets of paper and evolve towards an alternative process of creation and destruction of elements and figures; the artist repetitively cuts parts of the paper to reach the blank surface underneath - a way for him to keep questioning areas, re-arranging the space without erasing. Thus, the subject matter starts becoming more evident as the drawing evolves organically.

About the artist:
Luís Almeida was born in Lisbon, Portugal in 1985 and currently lives and works in Lisbon.
He studied the basic and advanced courses of fine arts at Ar.Co school in Lisbon (2008 – 2013) and the Interchange program at Escola Massana (Barcelona, 2012).
Luís´ works have been exhibited in Europe including National Museum of Contemporary Art (Mnac, Lisbon, 2019), Istituto Centrale per la Grafica (Rome, 2019), Galerie DYS (Brussels, 2018), the 66th edition of Jeune Création, Thaddaeus Ropac gallery (Pantin, 2016).