Solo exhibition curated by Leonor Nazaré

Centro de Arte Moderna - Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon

24.09.2021 – 17.01.2022

Biting Dust is a solo exhibition by Fernão Cruz, which features new paintings and new sculptures in a project conceived from scratch for the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

Since its creation, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation has supported the work of young and emerging artists in the national art scene, giving space and visibility to their creative expression. Biting Dust is the title of the solo exhibition by Fernão Cruz (Lisbon, 1995), a young artist whose career has been consolidated in the past few years.

The exhibition is the result of an invitation extended directly to the artist and corresponds with a project conceived from scratch for the Gulbenkian Foundation. 30 original works will be shown: 10 canvases painted in oil and alkyd resin and 20 sculptures, almost all of them bronze, installed in two successive, but distinct spaces, separated by a dark corridor that the visitor is invited to walk down after passing through a half-open door-painting.

Talking about his artistic practice, Fernão Cruz reveals that there is a recurrent erasure of what he paints and that the work ‘has to be capable of its potential self-destruction’, adding that ‘it is crucial for there to be failed attempts and paintings so as to give meaning to what is done and ends up not being destroyed or forgotten.’

While this project reflects on death, loss and decline, the artist explains that ‘Biting Dust is also an ode to the life which disguises fear. An attempt at acceptance.’ And he tells us that: ‘While on one hand, the title reveals a certain fear of non-presence (which I think is different to absence), the exhibition can also be a celebration.’

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