9 October - 29 October, 2023 | London, UK
Opening on 9th Ocotober, 2023, ‘PORTRAITS FOR ENGLISH TO SEE’, presents six new works that are part of René Tavares’ most recent and iconic painting series – “Portraits for English to See” and “Cotton People Reloaded”.
Curated by the acclaimed Angolan architect and curator Paula Nascimento, winner of the 2013 Golden Lion for Best National Participation at the Venice Biennale, The series presented in this exhibition are notable for their grandiose scale and the skillful manipulation of paints and powdered pigments, with which the artist creates landscapes with cotton fields and malleable surfaces, which often take on an earthy appearance.
René Tavares occupies a central position in the Santomean art scene and stands as a prominent figure within the contemporary art landscape of the Lusophone geographic space. In recent years, his visibility has surged both across Africa and internationally.
As part of the presentation of this exhibition, on October 13th, at 7 pm, The Africa Centre will host an artist talk entitled "Unfinished Histories", through which we will delve into the core elements of Tavares' artistic practice. The event is a unique opportunity to meet Tavares and deepen the understanding of the central elements of his artistic practice, as well as to interact with some of the most relevant and influential curatorial and cultural voices working with Africa and the art scene of its diaspora: Angolan architect and curator Paula Nascimento, will be participating as speaker, and British independent curator, academic and researcher Paul Goodwin, will be moderating.
About Artist
René Tavares translates into painting and drawing, through lines, lines, and stains, a personal synthesis of his own identity, always in process (“unfinished”), positioning himself in constant movement between past and present references.
He is interested in deepening the permeability of the borders between stories, languages, and techniques and sharing this exploratory path. He is an artist who reflects in his works his own experience of displacement or contemporary relocation between the various post-colonial contact zones. In many of his works, what the artist calls "l'imagerie comun" is present, the simple representation of a vulgar object or form that is inserted in a pictorial space of pure abstraction and that allows the treatment of lines with drawing technique and with painting technique, where several references appear nuanced, expressed in an ambiguous way, as if in a transposition of the very functioning of memory.
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