7 Jun — 1 Aug 2025 @Porto

Chuva de Pão, Solo Show by Simão Mota Carneiro

“Bread, baguette, brioche, introduce us to the lightened ochres, sometimes falling, sometimes levitating (...) The theme here is atmospheric sensitivity (...) Everything is light in the nervous calm (...) The figures land like long-legged insects in this enveloping humus.” *

SIMÃO MOTA CARNEIRO (Lisbon, 1989) develops his work on painting as a daily studio practice in Lisbon. He completed his degree in Graphic Design and a master's in Design and Visual Culture. He attended the Advanced Course in Visual Arts and Individual Project at Ar.Co, in Lisbon. He has exhibited regularly since 2021, with highlights including Ar.Co Finalists Exhibition, Galeria Quadrum, Lisbon (2024); Young Art Award Millennium BCP Foundation, Pavilion 31, Lisbon (2024); In the Rearview Mirror - What the Voices See, College of Arts, Coimbra (2024); Ar.Co Autumn Exhibition, Almada (2022-21). His work was distinguished with the Millennium BCP acquisition prize at the Prémio Arte Jovem in 2024. His work is also part of some Portuguese private collections.

Each of his paintings emerges with a logic of exercise and pictorial exploration, as well as research into the potential of painting as an image and an object for activating the visual sensory system. Painting is seen as a device for slowing down the image and questioning the visible and the field of the invisible. It oscillates between figuration and abstraction, and the main driving force behind his work is the search for images that question the way of 'looking' and the way of 'doing'.

*Excerpt from the original text by Francisca Carvalho