João GALRÃO (1975)

João Galrão was born in Sintra in 1975. He completed his Course in Conservation and Restoration of Heritage Sites at EPRP in Sintra in 1996 and an Advanced Course in Visual Arts at Ar.Co, Lisbon. He has exhibited his work in group exhibitions since 1996. Among other group shows, João Galrão participated in RAM (Lisbon, 1997) with several emerging artists and Greenspaces (2000, Estufa Fria, Lisbon) with Armanda Duarte. Three more exhibitions were held in 2003.

In 2003, João Galrão placed some objects on the floor amongst the works he exhibited at Graça Brandão Gallery (Oporto): a white surface enveloped a skeleton built in layers, its protuberances, points and curved perimeters stretching the canvas out in various directions. Like small ghosts or figures searching for a body, these points of import seemed to develop in space, hinting at strong eruptions beneath their covering. One could almost feel the pulsation of these apparently immaculate, yet potentially unpredictable beings.

A sculptural component also coexists with a pictorial component in his wall pieces (acrylic on canvas) – inhabited by the secret relation between what lies beneath and by the artist’s imagination, and what one sees as a bystander.

In the work from the CAMJAP collection, the canvas is as white as the sculptures on the floor (significantly entitled Presságios [Omens]). The centre of this canvas is smooth, but the edges, and unevenness of the wood stretcher, extend the cloth like a beaten sheet.

In the previously mentioned exhibition, Galrão displayed several of these objects on the walls. Though monochromatic, Galrão used a wide range of colours: greys, yellow, red, blue, and pink. He also used the effect of sectioned waves and spokes in other cases, placing them either below the surface of the canvas, or concentrating a number of them in one of its corners – giving the impression of a living being in search of an escape.

With some diptychs, Galrão creates an expressive commissure where two blocks meet – a depression mended with several stitches.

In 1998 and 1999, he worked with a number of materials including stone and wool. Together with his use of wood and canvas clearly sculptural forms are produced. Galrão builds objects that evoke or summon a direct physical relation, as is the case of Play Objects (1998) or the sculpture entitled Big Daddy (1999).

The value of texture and the skin of things is maintained in his most recent work, like an active agent, soliciting feelings of tactile curiosity and hesitation, of attraction and fear in the beholder – the same perplexity that a glimpse of what is invisible (the inside) from a visible viewpoint (the outside) normally provokes.

LEONOR NAZARÉ