Hernâni Reis Baptista
Hernâni Reis Baptista (Portugal, 1986) Hernâni Reis Baptista’s practice is defined by the construction of devices that invite the viewer into a sensory and unstable experience, where meaning remains suspended. His work proposes a critical reflection on modes of representing the body and on the ways subjectivity is shaped, fragmented, or negotiated within social, symbolic, and material structures.
Graduated in Fine Arts from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto, Hernâni Reis Baptista has regularly exhibited his work in solo and group exhibitions in Portugal and abroad since 2011. His work is included in several public and private collections, including the Portuguese State Contemporary Art Collection, Porto City Council, the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo (Turin), the Maximiano Lemos Museum of the History of Medicine (Porto), the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto, as well as private collections such as the Frances Reynolds Collection (Brazil) and the Marin Gaspar Collection (Alvito, Portugal).
Selected solo shows include Sei o que fizeste o verão passado, Galeria Plato, Porto, PT (upcoming, 2026); ARCO Lisboa, Lisboa, PT (2026); Uma perna que falha, Galeria Exteril, Porto, PT (2025); Bicha solitária, não há remédio que te cure, Galeria do Sol, Porto, PT (2025); cold steel keys (with João Pedro Trindade), STATIONS, Berlin, DE (2024); Fumos e Espelhos, Kubik, Porto, PT (2023); Água Viva, Dentro, Porto, PT (2022); A cortina de Parrásio, Sismógrafo, Porto, PT (2019); As uvas de Zeuxis, Casa das Artes, Porto, PT (2019); The confession of the flesh, Kubik, Porto, PT (2018); Portrait of a bronze boy, Kubikulo, Porto, PT (2017); Dog Eat Dog, Sismógrafo, Porto, PT (2016); T-1000, Maus Hábitos, Porto, PT (2015); Tropismos, Vésta Space, Porto, PT (2015); FALHA, Campanhã Space, Porto, PT (2013); Intraduzibilidade, Untranslatability, Unübersetzbarkeit, Klub Genau, Cologne, DE (2013); and Mesa Posta, Campanhã Space, Porto, PT (2011). Selected group shows include A terrível enciclopédia da mão, Galeria do Sol, Porto, PT (2025); Weave Up, Galerie 7, Lyon, FR (2025); Chuva de Verão, Obras da CACE, Museu Municipal de Tavira, PT (2025); Abracadabra, Plato, Porto, PT (2025); Jarra Humana, Obras da CACE, Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Elvas, PT (2024); Linha de Água, Bienal de Arte Contemporânea de Trás-os-Montes, PT (2024); Gémeos Falsos, Appleton Square, Lisboa, PT (2023); Contemporâneos Extemporâneos, Galeria Fernando Santos, Porto, PT (2021); Wether the Weather, Instituto Geofísico da Universidade do Porto, Gaia, PT (2021); 60 dias, Kubik Gallery, Porto, PT (2020); Shiu: O diálogo do silêncio, Bienal de Coimbra, PT (2019); Focus: Portugal, Art Toronto, CA (2019); 10/40, Kubik Gallery, Porto, PT (2019); Anuário, uma visão retrospectiva da arte no Porto, Galeria Municipal do Porto, PT (2019); ter o caminho livre, Alvito, Porto, PT (2018); Voo Picado, Casa das Artes, Porto, PT (2018); When someone died the greeks just asked..., Sismógrafo, Porto, PT (2018); Caleidoscópio, Maus Hábitos, Porto, PT (2017); 8ª Ed. Bienal de Jovens Criadores da CPLP, Vila Nova de Cerveira, PT (2017); Mupi Gallery, Maus Hábitos/Saco Azul, Barcelos, PT (2017); Force, Strenght, Power, Baginsky Gallery, Lisboa, PT (2017); Poste, Exteril Gallery, Porto, PT (2017); and Em Colectivo, Kubik Gallery, Porto, PT (2016).
Selected Works
Two beasts, 2025 | Steel tube, cement, stone, paper, plaster, pigment, potassium alum crystals, snake ecdysis, speed ice skating blades, rubber flooring | 400x300cm | Two Beasts began with fragments torn from public spaces: remnants of street posts still attached to masses of cement and stone. These structures, which were designed to organise, signal or regulate movement, are displaced into the realm of sculpture. There, they lose their original function and exist somewhere between ruin, support and obstacle. Horn-like forms made of paper and plaster emerge from each steel tube, their tips coated in pink pigment. At the bases, small salt crystals accumulate alongside a snake’s discarded skin and pairs of speed skating blades. These elements appear less as fixed symbols than as bodies in transformation, or as traces or mechanisms of defence. The work unfolds within a space of instability, where weight and vulnerability, resistance and exposure coexist. I’m interested in thinking about these structures as bodies traversed by contradictory forces, simultaneously contained and in mutation, suspended between the animal, the urban, and the artificial.
Dog from the prairie, 2024 | Print and ink on canvas, metal structure | 137x87cm | Dog from the prairie takes origin from the image of an old protective collar for shepherd dogs, an apparatus designed to defend them from wolf attacks. This image is partially obscured by mist-like layers of paint, as if caught in the process of appearing or disappearing. I am interested in the difficulty of accessing the image and the space between revelation and concealment, where the object loses its definition and becomes something more ambiguous, a cross between armour, ornament, and a device of restraint.
The wolf’s kiss, 2024 | Nails, aluminium, silicone, paint | 32x30x9cm | The wolf’s kiss unites danger and care within the same object. The nails, which were historically used to ward off wolf attacks, become ambiguous, simultaneously functioning as a defence mechanism and a threat. I delved into this contradiction, exploring the intertwining of protection and aggression, and the way in which the body is conditioned by the constant necessity of survival.
Dressing and saying goodbye, 2025 | Print on aluminium panel | 100x50cm | Certain images can appear both ordinary and unsettling at the same time. A sense of suspension runs through them, as if something has just happened or is about to happen: a body being dressed or undressed, thistles by the roadside, a bullet hole piercing glass, fragments of sculptures and graffiti, or a bag containing a skeleton. They were not initially conceived as part of a single narrative, but gradually began to converge through subtle formal and symbolic connections.
Mask, 2022 | Hockey mask, silicone straps | 23x11x30cm | These works often start with an exploration of the body’s surface. They are painted with brushes, makeup sponges, and other tools associated with touching, applying, or covering skin. I’m drawn to the ambiguity between painting and camouflage; between something that reveals and simultaneously conceals.