1978, lives and works at São Paulo, Brazil

My work is concerned with the idea of displacement, both in terms of discipline and territory. Originally trained as an architect, my sculptures and installations reflect my status as a portuguese artist living and working in Brazil and the historical associations of human and artistic flows between the two countries. The work actively resists a singular reading and engages with different symbolic and anthropological registers through a critical approach to materiality, elaboration and modes of presentation. Ceramics as sculpture appears in my work with this aim of displacement, causing a process of redefinition and reframing of its mediums. Using materials such as clay, bronze, plaster and paint, my work establishes a constant negotiation between project and unpredictability, between program and expressive freedom. My paintings and sculptures share technical procedures (on production) and modes of display (on reception), presenting themselves more as questioning systems than as fixed genres or statutes. Regarding my recent body of work, I would emphasize a growing capacity to critically relate to the achievements of the project of modernity, its controversial key figures and its artistic myths and narratives of originality, development and social organization.

www.tiagomestre.com