RUI MIGUEL LEITÃO FERREIRA ART

Rui Miguel Leitao Ferreira

(geboren 1977 in Lissabon, lebt und arbeitet in Lissabon und Wien)

Seine Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit Themen wie Männlichkeit, Schwulenrechte und Genderpolitik. Die Bilder berücksichtigen auch Themen wie Eitelkeit und sexuelle Sichtbarkeit.

His work explores themes of masculinity, gay rights and geder politics and also considers themes of vanity and sexual visibility.

Each lake is unique. But each lake always resembles other lakes to the extent that we may remember, evoke, or even confuse them. A lake is a limited portion of water which, unlike the sea, frequently ends before the horizon, reachable by our gaze and therefore generating the false confidence of knowing it. Waters trapped by plane margins or slopes, green or dry; turbid or simply dark waters; motionless or not very agitated waters; mysterious waters whose strangeness contaminates those who live nearby or simply come close to it.

We know what the artist Rui Miguel Leitão Ferreira’s lake is, but knowing its name, size, location and surroundings is only important up to a certain point. And that point is beyond what we need to know to understand and love the paintings which resulted from it. More than being a specific lake, what matters is its condition as a lake – a kind of hortus conclusus, the enclosed, delimited garden evoked in the Song of Songs, a microcosm inseparable from the medieval utopia of the convent or monastery as a territory of perfection.

In his new lake paintings Rui Miguel Leitão Ferreira weaves visual events, in a determined space and in an indeterminate time. Without real existence, they are strange constructions and reconstructions of memory, amalgams of bodies, objects, clothes, and props which have never been together, in this place or anywhere else. Unless through his imagination, put at the service of the transformation of the mnemonic records obtained during his short life at that lake.

One thing seems certain, the irruption of his body in this space is the connecting thread of the different visual events. A body which almost always appears naked and which, in this way, offers itself to the gaze, that is, to the attention, curiosity and, above all, desire (or repulsion) of the observer.

(from the text “A lake, several lakes, all lakes” by Victor dos Reis)

 

Rui Miguel Leitão Ferreira

1977, born in Lisbon (Portugal)

Lives and works in Lisbon and Vienna (Portugal and Austria)

The painting of Rui Miguel Leitão Ferreira consists of a delicate balance between what is stated and what happens. With foundations that are simultaneously both profoundly physical as well as spiritual, his work is a development of the intersection of different forms, rhythms, and ways of doing. Medium, material and action come together in a dialogue which is both thoughtful and intuitive, focussing on the relationship between the act of making marks on the canvas, the outcome of those marks, and what we make of what appears. With its criss-cross of overlapping layers, the dialogue shows us the desire of the artist to make a mark - applying the paint directly to the canvas, accepting the unknown result - when he covers, stamps, strips and lays bare the various layers of which the painting consists.

Highly physical in both structure and image, the works of Rui Ferreira emanate a density which breathe life. A density that comes from careful manipulation of his choice of materials, with recognition of their thickness, elasticity, opacity, and chemical reaction, as well as in his observation of the image and detailed understanding of what it is. To speak of the density of the painting and its inherent complexity leads us to notice the disarming simplicity of the production process, which embraces the accidental, the unforeseen and the uncontrollable. His work can be seen as a set of forces in balance, of desire and acceptance, of material and image, the complex and the simple.

(Excerpts from “Neither Valley Nor Mountain” Sérgio Fazenda Rodrigues) 

In 2012, Rui Miguel Leitão Ferreira got an MA in Fine Arts, at Goldsmiths University of London, and in 2005 a BA in painting, at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Lisbon. His latest exhibitions include the MU.SA (Sintra Museum of Arts), 2021, Galeria 111, 2020 (solo), Low Gallery, Kondres, UK (2019), AIR-Krinzinger Projekte, Vienna, Austria (2019), in 2023 his works will be exhibited at the Mind Set Art Center, Taipei City, Taiwan and The Sunday Painter Gallery , London; his first solo show New Paintings from the Lake at Galerie Krinzinger Showroom will be on view until March 11, 2023 in Vienna.

His works are in many public collections, such as Yuan Art Collection, Switzerland; PLMJ, Portugal; AIP - Associação Industrial Portuguesa, Portugal; Fidelidade Seguros, Portugal; Re - Mútua del Carme - Granollers, Spain; CAMB - Oeiras, Portugal; Colección Navacerrada, Spain.

RUI FERREIRA

RUI MIGUEL LEITÃO FERREIRA Biography (2018)

1977 geboren in Lissabon, Portugal / born in Lisbon, Portugal, lives and works in Lisbon and Vienna

2012 MFA in Fine Arts, Goldsmiths, University of London

2005 Degree in Fine Arts at F.B.A.U.L., Lisbon

Einzelausstellungen / Solo Exhibitions (Auswahl / Selection)

2022 Galerie Krinzinger

2020 Nem Vale Nem Montanha, Galeria 111, Lisbon, Portugal

2017 Rui Miguel Leitão Ferreira, Galeria 111, Lisbon, Portugal

2016 Tequila Sunrise. Paintings without a painter, Amir Shariat Projects, Parallel, Vienna

2013 The Tomb and the Fountain, Hotel Elephant Gallery, London, UK

2009 Pele, Galeria Filomena Soares, Lisbon, Portugal

2007 Temperatura, Galeria Filomena Soares, Lisbon
, Portugal

2005 Módulo, Centro Difusor de Arte, Lisbon, Portugal

2004 Módulo, Centro Difusor de Arte, Oporto, Portugal

2003 Pulsação, parte 1, Módulo, Centro Difusor de Arte, Lisbon, Portugal

Pulsação, parte 2, Módulo, Centro Difusor de Arte, Oporto , Portugal

Gruppenaustellung / Group Exhibitions (Auswahl / Selection)

2020 Paralell Fair Vienna

2019 Fuck The Digital, Low Gallery, Londres, UK

Uma Coreografia de Gestos Mínimos, Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisboa, Portugal

AIR - Artists in Residence, Krinzinger Projekte, Vienna, Austria

Constelações: Uma Coreografia de Gestos Mínimos, Museo Coleção Berardo, Lisboa,

Portugal

2018 Pensar em Grande, Centro de Arte Manuel de Brito, Palácio dos Anjos, Algés Portugal. Hindrance to Modern Speed, Sehsaal, Vienna, Austria

2017 AIR, Krinzinger Projekte, Vienna, Austria. Present, DaDa Da Academy, IFAC, Athens, Greece

2016 Suey and Ruey: Brexit Stories, The Queen Adelaide of Cambridge Heath, London, UK

2015 Suey and Ruey: Brexit Stories, The Queen Adelaide of Cambrdge Heath, London, UK. This Is My Life, Sue Tilley and Rui Ferreira, Forman's Smokehouse Gallery, London, UK

2014 Acervo. Artistas Portugueses en la Colección Navacerrada, Spain

2013 Coleção Manuel de Brito. Aquisições Recentes, Portugal

Untouchable, (Curated by Franko B), The Flying Dutchman, London, UK

2012 This Is The End, Goldsmiths College, London, UK

2011 O voo do Bumerangue – 10 anos da Galeria Filomena Soares, Lisbon, Portugal


2010 Guasch Coranty International Painting Prize, Centre Cultural Metropolita Tecla Sala, L«Hospitalet, Barcelona, Spain

Mono, (about the group GICAPC/CORES CAPC 1976/1978), Círculo de Artes
Plásticas de Coimbra, Portugal


etc.

Fotografien: Jasha Greenberg 2018/19 / Carmen Alber / Galerie Krinzinger