Born in Porto, Portugal.
Lives and works in London.
ESAD – Porto, Portugal (BA)
Central Saint Martins – London, UK (MA)
Exhibitions held at Menier, Coningsby, Laundromat and Bankside (London), Dentro and Buraco (Porto), Ainori (Lisbon), amongst others.
gustavocmfernandes@gmail.com
+44 (0) 7533527468
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Lives and works in London.
ESAD – Porto, Portugal (BA)
Central Saint Martins – London, UK (MA)
Exhibitions held at Menier, Coningsby, Laundromat and Bankside (London), Dentro and Buraco (Porto), Ainori (Lisbon), amongst others.
gustavocmfernandes@gmail.com
+44 (0) 7533527468
Gustavo Costa Fernandes was born in Porto, Portugal, in 1983. His practice focuses primarily on painting and monoprinting. He often takes figurative subjects and tries to identify, recast, and rebuild scenes with more ambiguous codes, taking banal situations to more symbolic conditions, to a more universal code of vivid marks. Found photography, digital trash, and simple memories form most of the starting points – the banal, the corny, the fringed, the scared, and the totally opposite. It’s all made of contradiction and paradox, with the elements going from the underground to the mainstream and back.
He often implements processes that make use of an instinctive make-up that is emotional, economic and devoid of most time references. His yearning is for the works to materialise like small exorcisms, anxious and restless. Disquiet is his most important tool. When there is no agitation to be employed, the work is dead and decorative at birth, and he restarts the undertaking. As a result, a lot of the paintings have two, three or even more other paintings buried underneath, with the previous vestiges working as a fertile ground for accidents and new unexpected routes of communication. When this isn’t the case, its because they were done in one sitting, with one specific and direct temperament. Both ways seek the same outcome, scenes that are at the same time ubiquitous and largely unlearned.
He often implements processes that make use of an instinctive make-up that is emotional, economic and devoid of most time references. His yearning is for the works to materialise like small exorcisms, anxious and restless. Disquiet is his most important tool. When there is no agitation to be employed, the work is dead and decorative at birth, and he restarts the undertaking. As a result, a lot of the paintings have two, three or even more other paintings buried underneath, with the previous vestiges working as a fertile ground for accidents and new unexpected routes of communication. When this isn’t the case, its because they were done in one sitting, with one specific and direct temperament. Both ways seek the same outcome, scenes that are at the same time ubiquitous and largely unlearned.
photo by Emlily Ross, 2024
