Helena Almeida: 'Seduzir' [To Seduce, 2002] (detail)

Collection

Sin título [Untitled]

Image caption
JORGE QUEIROZ

Sin título [Untitled]

  • 2003
  • Mixed technique on paper
  • 151 x 117 cm
  • Cat. D_302
  • Acquired in 2004
By:
Beatriz Herráez

Untitled (2003) is a large drawing that showcases the ambiguity and fantasy so characteristic of the work of Jorge Queiroz. In the specific case of Untitled, he makes us witnesses to an imaginary event: a faceless pedestrian has been knocked over and is lying in the foreground on what seems to be a street that runs in perspective to the upper right edge of the work. This mysterious, rather tragic scene is not, however, exempt from a certain grotesque humour of the kind that is also unmistakable in Queiroz’s oeuvre.

As in his earliest works, gouache, inks, charcoal, oils, acrylic and crayons are used in this series of images, which he has developed throughout his career. In Untitled (2003), Queiroz uses black and white in the ‘figurative’ elements that construct the more narrative plane of the image, contrasting with the yellow used in a drawing section that is added to some areas, creating a superimposed, extended reading of this specific iconography. The coexistence of multiple languages and of layers of ‘meaning’ that point in different directions is another of the qualities of his oeuvre. There are works that emerge from the artist’s daily routine in his study, to which he returns again and again until they are completed. There is an overlaying of motifs, languages and techniques that increases the enigmatic, ambiguous, daring character of images that explore the personal and collective unconscious and challenge conventions. The unpredictable, disturbing aspects of taking fantasy and desire to representative art form what is ultimately the basis of many of Queiroz’s works: a collection of images in which the free association of ideas, forms and figures generates a territory charged with strange references for the viewer, a space invested with an attractive, enigmatic nature.

Beatriz Herráez

 
By:
Beatriz Herráez
Jorge Queiroz
Lisbon 1966

Jorge Queiroz studied at the Visual Communication and Art Centre in Lisbon (1991) and the New York School of Visual Arts (1997-1999), and furthered his training at institutes such as the Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin.

His output is based on drawing, painting and engraving, and on the construction of scenes that reveal his interest in architecture, landscape and the human figure. He produces pictorial spaces rich in references which include comics and illuminated manuscripts, populated by tiny characters stemming from imaginative fantasy, At recent exhibitions such as the one at the Rennes Fine Arts Museum (2016), Queiroz’s scenes have been compared with Bosch’s Bestiaries due to the plethora of details and his boundless imagination.

The introduction to his first solo show in Spain, organised by the Helga de Alvear Gallery in Madrid, stressed the way in which ‘Queiroz shows his skill in using empty space and filling the paper with drawings crammed with different motifs. A myriad sources can be recognised there, either as quotes or influences. At first sight, figures can be seen that are reminiscent of Goya or Piranesi, but also of Mike Kelly and the classics of abstract art’. The text also rightly stresses the ‘visual promiscuity’ characteristic of images constructed on paper and canvas with barely any spaces left untouched by the hand of the artist..

In recent years, Jorge Queiroz has featured in group exhibitions at the Serralves Museum (Porto, Portugal, 2017), the National Museum of Contemporary Art – Museu do Chiado (Lisbon, 2017), the Federico García Lorca Centre (Granada, 2016) and the Georges Pompidou Centre (Paris, 2014). He has staged solo exhibitions at the Cidade Museum (Lisbon, 2015), Vene Klasen/Werner (Berlin, 2014) and the Carmona e Costa Foundation (Lisbon, 2012). His work has been part of international exhibitions including the London Drawing Biennial (2017), the Les Ateliers Contemporary Art Biennial (Rennes, France, 2017), the Berlin Biennial (2006), the São Paulo Biennial (2004) and the Venice Biennale (2003).

Beatriz Herráez

 
«Jorge Queiroz», Fundação Serralves (Porto, 2007).
Vv.Aa. Colección Banco de España. Catálogo razonado, Madrid, Banco de España, 2019, vol. 3.