João Figueiredo    -   BIOGRAPHY

João Figueiredo

João Figueiredo was born in Lisbon in 1970; he studied Cinema at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, and has a BA degree in Design from IADE, the Portuguese school of design, in Lisbon.

In the year 2000, he had his first one-man show with “Mortas por Natureza”, Dead by Nature (Alcântara-Studio, Lisbon), an exhibition of still lifes, sponsored by BCP, a leading Portuguese financial institution. His interest on the subject continued in the following year with the exhibition “Peras pectivas”, Pears-Pectives (Artes e Artes Gallery, Lisbon). In 2002, in collaboration with the artist Jacinto Luís, he presented a new group of works, under the generic title “Frutos Proibidos”, the Forbidden Fruits (Arte Privada Gallery, Lisbon).

In 2003, sponsored by Barclays Bank, Portugal, he had his third one-man show with “Lilliputian Chamber” (Galeria Arte Privada, Lisbon), a particularly important exhibition, for it marked the end of a period exploring a genre that has always attracted him.

It marked a new phase in a rather short, but unusually productive career.

Sponsored once again by a bank, the BPN, João Figueiredo in “Retratos da Memória”, Portraits of Memory (Grémio Literário, Lisbon) evokes the classical traditions of the Academy using photographic reproductions of old-masters paintings: I have tried through my work to give them a new immortality. I agree that I often dissect celebrated works, but at the same time I am bringing them into the 21st century, and conferring them a new, more actual dimension…

He has been nominated to several prizes, namely the “Prémio Vespeira” and the “Prémio Artur Bual”. In 2004, in the International Contemporary Fair of Estoril, he received the Nadir Afonso prize, an award which distinguishes every year the best young artists, while in 2005 he received an honorary distinction from the jury of the “D. Fernando II” award. In March 2005, he was invited to participate in the Biennale Internazionale dell’Arte Contemporanea of Florence, where he presented a small group of works entitled “Rinascimento del Rittrato”, the Renaissance of the Portrait.

In 2006 he presents is biggest show, “Again for the first time” in Ministry of Finances, where he continues to bring from the XVI,XVII and XVIII centuries new stories and a whole new “Cabinets of Wonder”. At the end of this year, at his second presentation out of is country, presents the “Less is more” collection in Zizi Galllery, London. 2007 begins with his first participation in ARTMADRID.

Selected private, public and corporate collections:

Millennium BCP, BPN Bank, Barclays Bank, Mário Soares Foundation, Lisbon Airport, Loures City Council, Espírito Santo Group, Ministry of Finances, Sintra City Council, Simmons&Simmons  

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