Rui Soares Costa - Visual Artist - Series

untitled 51050/3, 2015

ink on paper

150 x 105 cm

untitled 21100/6, 2018

ink on paper

150 x 105 cm

untitled 2067, 2018
ink on paper
13,5 x 9 cm

exhibition view

The game of logic, JUSTMAD, 2019

exhibition view

Não acontece este esqueleto dançar / (Un)dancing skeleton, sala 117 Gallery, 2019

untitled, 2017

ink on paper

14 x 9 cm

untitled 46000/6, 2018

ink on paper

150 x 105 cm

EXHIBITIONS

2021 - Rising, Salgadeiras Gallery, Lisbon, PT

2019 - Não acontece este esqueleto dançar / (Un)dancing skeleton, sala 117 Gallery, Porto, PT

2019 - Estes pés só pisam vento / Walking the wind, Salgadeiras Gallery, Lisbon, PT

2018 - Honey series, Geological Museum, Lisbon, PT

2018 - Quando o tacto se faz contacto, sala 117 Gallery, Porto, PT (collective exhibition curated by Hugo Dinis)

2017 - Lifeline series, Salgadeiras Gallery, Lisbon, PT

2016 - Utopia Today, Abílio Museum, Óbidos, PT - FOLIO'16 (collective exhibition curated by Ana Matos)

ART FAIRS:

2021 - DRAWING ROOM LISBOA, Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes, Lisbon, PT

2019 - JUSTMAD, The game of logic, Neptune Palace, Madrid, ES

SOUNDTRACKS:

2019 - Estes pés só pisam vento / Walking the wind (by André Gonçalves)

2017 - Lifeline series (by André Gonçalves)

TEXTS:

2019 -Joana Valsassina; Pedro Goulão I, II, III, IV; José Luís Porfírio; Hugo Dinis

2017 - José Luís Porfírio; Ana Matos I, II, III

PRESS:

2019 - Jornal de Letras; RTP3; Expresso; Le Monde Diplomatique; Egoísta; Gerador

2017 - Expresso; SIC; Antena 3; TimeOut; Sábado

2016 - Óbidos TV

OTHER PROJECTS:

2021 - 3 etchings (ed. 35 each, signed and numbered), Centro Português de Serigrafia, Lisbon, PT

2021- etching (ed. 50) for the 25th anniversary of the Ministry of Science and Technology, PT

2020 - drawings for the posters of the 25th anniversary of the Ministry of Science and Technology, PT

exhibition view

estes pés só pisam vento / walking the wind, Salgadeiras Gallery, 2019

poster for the 25th anniversary of the Ministry of Science and Technology, Portugal

untitled 668/1, 2020
ink on paper
50 x 35 cm

untitled 34131/2, 2018

ink on paper

150 x 38 cm

untitled 5616/3, 2017

ink on paper

150 x 105 cm

exhibition view

The game of logic, JUSTMAD, 2019

untitled, 2016

ink on paper

14 x 9 cm

untitled 1133/1, 2014

ink on paper

150 x 105 cm

home/work/series/lifeline/...

LIFELINE SERIES

The lifeline drawings register and compress time in lines that attempt to be straight. The imperfection of these lines comes from being drawn by a free hand, one by one. The hand, working as a seismograph, records the artist in the timeline. It is as if there was an equation guiding this series with several fixed parameters and a few variable ones. The fixed parameters would be: 1) lines are drawn with the pen that draws the thinest possible line (0,15 or 0,2 mm); 2) lines attempt to be straight; 3) lines try to be as close to each other as possible; 4) lines avoid touching each other. From these last two rules of opposite direction - one leading to maximum proximity, the other attempting to assure lines do not become too close - results an underlying tension in which lines, compressed by the enormity of time it takes to complete such drawings, create a perceptually vibrating texture. This vibration, seen on the grey surfaces that emerge from the slow accumulation of hundreds, or thousands of lines, is the product of a slow human seismograph operating as a press of time. The variable parameters would have to do with the interruptions of the lines: when and where each line stops? And where does it resumes?

Although most of my work revolves around vertical pieces, recent work has been further exploring the concept of verticality and its representation. These vertical pieces with totem-like proportions (paper: 150 x 38 cm; plywood: 200 x 46 cm) arise from two sets of reasons coming together in 2018. On the one hand, having done the Transiberian rail from Moscow to Beijing, through Siberia and Mongolia, connecting my hometown in Europe, Lisbon, to the Far East, I went from the Russian Icon representation to the Chinese calligraphy. If I started well familiarised with vertical representations, I ended up interested in the vertical stripes of Chinese calligraphy. On the other hand, after having lived in California for a few years, for a long time now I have been fascinated by the sheer brutality of the granite walls of places like Yosemite National Park, and its renowned big climbing walls, like El Capitan and Half Dome. The verticality of these works is also a tribute to granite walls, climbing and Alex Honnold’s inspiring feat of free soloing El Cap.

Rui Soares Costa

Lisbon, April 2020

(scroll right for the pictures)
(photos by Ana Matos, Cláudio Garrudo, Filipe Braga, Rui Soares Costa, Tiago Casanova)