PEDRO A.H. PAIXÃO

Born in 1971 in Lobito (AO)
Lives and works in Castellina Marittima (IT)

 

Pedro A.H. Paixão was born in Lobito, Angola, living there until the outbreak of the Civil War in 1975. He grew up in Lisbon, studying painting and drawing at Ar.Co – Arts and Visual Communication Center, Lisbon. He holds a M.F.A. in film and video from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in philosophy, from Faculty of Letters of the University of Porto. He founded and directs the editorial project Disciplina sem nome (discipline without name) for the Lisbon publisher Sistema Solar | Documenta and Carmona e Costa Foundation, Lisbon. In 2008, he wrote Desenho, A Transparência dos Signos (Drawing, The Transparency of Signs), a philosophical study that both restores an ancient theory of drawing and problematizes the ones accepted in Western legacy, as well as their history, concept and use. He won the international Navigator Art on Paper prize in 2018, and the first major comprehensive exhibition of his work was held at CIAJG, in Guimarães (PT) that same year.

Besides his work with other media – like sound, video, film, or the use of objects and slide diaporamas – Pedro A.H. Paixão has mainly been creating a broad range of monochromatic graphic works, starting with a series of scarlet drawings developed between 2007 and 2017. The pencil follows his hand, drawing creatures and characters who, as they take shape, also found a voice. As if they had something to tell us from a remote past or from emergencies of our present.
Recently, the Portuguese artist has been developing new groups: one, luminous, created with turquoise coloured pencils, and another, darker and more mysterious, made with graphite. In these drawings, dedicated to Central Africa in (neo)colonial times and the possibilities of reparation, the artist broaches the complex topic of restitution and presents visual works where things are felt and though anew – not under the trial of history and morality but under their own light, breaking preconceptions and misconceptions apart. Both series are combining an oneiric atmosphere with complex histories of struggle and emancipation, like the confrontation between an imposed Colonial cosmology, still operating today, and the many resistances lead by autochthonous stories. Pedro A.H. Paixão’s work, simultaneously laborious and delicate, the seemingly quiet form and the multi-layered content make no concessions.

 

Paixão’s drawing is the most radical attempt to give back to drawing not only the aesthetic centrality it lost centuries ago but also, and especially, the status of a cosmic cognitive means we are no longer able to recognise in it.
– Emanuele Coccia, “Setting the World on Fire”, in Arson | Fogo posto (Lisboa, 2016)

Pedro Paixão’s most recent exhibition [Tabou] brings together the works that allowed him to bring out – and thus to see – Africa, of which he is one of the diasporic children. The lesson he draws out from it – the lesson we all draw from it – is more than astonishing. No judgment seems to come from it. No criticism. No jubilation in the face of a newfound origin. On the contrary, all recognition is literally impossible: if we must draw, it is because sight is always the opposite of recognition.
– Emanuele Coccia, “Being in Nuance”, in Tabou | Drawings (Brussels, 2018)

 


 

[ARTICLES]

Essays:

  • “Being in Nuance” by Emanuele Coccia, 2018 (EN) (FR)
  • Tabou or the (Im)possibility of Conclusion” by Sofia Lemos, 2018 (EN) (FR)
  • “Setting the world on fire” by Emanuele Coccia, 2016 (EN)

Selected press:

Pedro A.H. Paixão | ARTIST IN FOCUS, Irène Laub Gallery
"Pedro A.H. Paixão: As histórias de um rótulo" by Esporão, 2016

COLLECTIONS

Benetton Foundation, Treviso (IT)
CAC Málaga Collection, Málaga (ES)
Figueiredo Ribeiro Collection (PT)
Carmona and Costa Foundation (PT)
Manuel de Brito Collection (PT)
PLMJ Collection (PT)

SOLO SHOWS

2020

Aurora | Desenhos e outros materiais, Galeria 111, Lisbon (PT)

2019

Paulus (with François Bucher), cur. Paulo Pires do Vale, CAV – Centro de Artes Visuais, Coimbra (PT)

2018

Floating world, works 1996 -2018, cur. Nuno Faria, Centro Internacional das Artes José de Guimarães, Guimarães (PT)

Navigator Art on Paper exhibition, Chiado 8, Lisbon (PT)

Tabou, cur. Sofia Lemos, Irène Laub Gallery, Brussels (BE)

2017

Fogo posto | Arson, Fundação Carmona e Costa, Lisbon (PT)

2016

A cor de um eclípse, (with Catarina Dias), Ár Sólido project, Lisbon (PT)

Sic transit gloria mundi, Money Museum – Banco de Portugal, Lisbon (PT)

Fogo Posto, Fundaçao Carmona e Costa, Lisbon (PT)

2015

Do fundo, Galeria 111, Lisbon (PT)

2012

Studies in Red, Galeria 111, Lisbon (PT)

2011

The human dimension of the sky, (with Paulo Brighenti), 102-100 Galeria de Arte, Castelo Branco (PT)

2009

A Festa | The Feast, (with Rui Moreira), cur. Sara Antónia Matos and Delfim Sardo, Carmona e Costa Foundation, Lisbon (PT)

2007

Drawing in Brueghel’s drawing, cur. Filipa Oliveira, Carlos Carvalho Arte Contemporânea, Lisbon (PT)

2005

Bouzean, cur. Filipa Oliveira, Faro Capital da Cultura, Fabrica da Cerveja, Faro (PT)

2004

Slow Motion: Pedro Paixão, cur. Miguel Wandschneider, Escola Superior de Arte e Design, Caldas da Rainha (PT)

2003

*Ar-, cur. Nuno Faria, Centro Cultural de Belém, Lisbon (PT)

2000

Flieg!-, cur. Delfim Sardo, José de Azeredo Perdigão Modern Art Centre, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon (PT)

GROUP SHOWS

2022

Europa, OxaláFondation GulbenkianLisbon (FR)

Le pas suspendu, Irène Laub Gallery, Brussels (BE)

2021

Europa, Oxalá, MUCEM, Marseille (FR)

2019

Sonhos e Raciocínios – 500 anos depois de Leonardo da Vinci, FBAUP (PT)

Achrome, Irène Laub Gallery, Bruxelles (BE)

2018

Politics of Discontent, cur. Jonathan Sullam, Irène Laub Gallery, Brussels (BE)

Navigator Art on Paper Prize, Chiado 8, Lisbon (PT)

2017
Now it is Light, cur. Sofia Lemos, Galeria da Boavista – EGEAC, Lisbon (PT)
2016

GENTE – De Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso a Pedro A.H. Paixão, cur. Arlete Alves da Silva, Cem Anos de Representação Humana, Centro de Arte Manuel de Brito, Algés (PT)

Índios da Meia-Praia, cur. Nuno Faria, Galeria 111, Lisbon (PT)

2015

Oracular Spectacular: Drawing and Animism, cur. Nuno Faria, Centro Internacional de Artes José de Guimarães, Guimarães (PT)

2014

Rituals with Masks: a face to face, cur. Nuno Faria, Centro Internacional de Artes José de Guimarães, Guimarães (PT)

2013

Lessons of Darkness, cur. Nuno Faria, Centro Internacional de Artes José de Guimarães, Guimarães (PT)

2012

Beyond History, cur. Nuno Faria, Centro Internacional de Artes José de Guimarães, Guimarães (PT)

2007

50 Years of Portuguese Art, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (FCG), Lisbon (PT)

25 frames per seconds: Videos from PLMJ Collection, cur. Miguel Amado, PLMJ Foundation, Lisbon (PT)

2003

The Art of Memory, cur. Filipa Oliveira, Centro Cultural de Belém, Lisbon (PT)

2000

Mnemosyne, cur. Delfim Sardo, Encontros de Fotografia de Coimbra, Coimbra (PT)

1999

A indisciplina do desenho, cur. Nuno Faria and Miguel Wandschneider, Ministério da Cultura – Institute of contemporary Art : Cupertino de Miranda Foundation, Vila Nova de Famalicão; José Malhoa Museum, Caldas da Rainha; Aveiro Museum, Aveiro (PT)

1997

Rijeka Bienal of Arts, Rijeka (HR)

1996

Sete Artistas ao Décimo Mês, cur. João Miguel Fernandes Jorge, José de Azeredo Perdigão Modern Art Center, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon (PT)

PRIZES

2018

Navigator Art on Paper (PT)

1999

John Quincy Adams Award, School of the Art Institute, Chicago (US)