There was a solo exhibition:

Essential Portrait
When is a portrait a portrait?

Casino de Lisboa
Until July the 31st

Sundays to Thursdays: from15:00h to 03:00h
Fridays and Saturdays: from 16:00h to 04:00h
Children are welcome

The work that I have developed as a painter is almost entirely centered on the human figure. This observation is the result of a preference, a natural inclination, which I do not fight back and which has been developing since childhood, having had a more oriented approach during college and been very free since then.

Rather than the landscape or objects, what interests me are people and the expression they carry in themselves, their bodies, gestures, and faces. And then, the relationship of these bodies with space, light, objects, and animals.

Just as in childhood we draw our mother, father, brothers, friends, and ourselves, I resumed drawing and painting, after an interregnum of years, through the portrait of those dear to me. I do not claim more erudite or strenuous reasons than affection. From here to the affections of others it was a quick step and I started doing commissioned portraits on a regular basis.

Normally, when people ask me to portray someone they like, or themselves, they expect an immediate recognition of the portrayed and wish that their best physical characteristics are reinforced, in a pleasant and nice outcome. This pressure can sometimes weigh on the enjoyment of the creative moment and it systematically leads me to adopt a contrarian approach, away from monotony and the expected.

As examples of this resistance I bring you three small escape series ("Female Gaze", "Me, Ugly" and "Ugly Drawings) that generally counteract the perfect, the beautiful, and the precious, and, in what constitutes the novelty in my journey (and only there), the most recent path I have taken in the search for the essential portrait, the minimal (but not minimalist) portrait or the limits of the portrait.

As this path is far from complete, I invite you to join me and reflect on these questions: When is a portrait a portrait? And when does it stop being one? What degree of abstraction can it handle? How far can one go so that the subject is recognized, or recognize itself, and when does the observer start to project something else? Ultimately, is there a sweet spot? Is it reached when each one recognizes themself and, almost simultaneously, each one can invent other subjects? The relationship between the sign, the signifier and the signified.

In this journey, I experiment with materials and approaches; I make variations on known or previously worked themes, and I also ask you: which one do you like the most?

Lia Ferreira, April 2022.