The Art Magazine November 2020 | Page 27

I also appreciate when people talk to me about some aspects of my work that I haven’t realized or didn’t intent to be in a certain way. It’s always good when a conversation gets going, it means that you really touched some visual or intellectual cord that gets people to engage. Humor and sex usually function as ice breakers, they allow the conversation about art to start at a common ground that people feel more comfortable with, it gets the seriousness and the white cub pompousness out of the equation. Art it’s not a popularity contest, it’s just manual dexterity combined with guts and visual acumen.

Before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context?

I don’t think of the audience when I’m doing my work. That’s not a stimulant for me. It doesn’t mean that I don’t care about what other people think about it. In fact, I’m increasingly committed to do better exhibitions because I want people to experience a nice assemblage and have a nice time as an appreciation for them to have come. I see many gallery shows that are plain boring, that don’t reward the viewer in any way (work or display). I think it is possible to have a good exhibition with only bad works if the display of the pieces is well balanced. I mean, I try to do my best in both areas. So, I worry about the reception of my work after it is done. I’m also sensitive about the specific public of a particular gallery or museum space because sex is still a theme that certain space directors don’t want to deal with. Art history is full of naked and slaughtered people but still we must be careful about showing some genitals. I can’t cope with these limitations all the time because my work deals a lot about sex and human erotic experience, it would limit the exhibitions to a tamed version of my universe which I think wouldn’t be the best way to experience it.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Jorge. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?

Two months ago, I restarted to draw with hard materials (colored pencils, graphite and charcoal). This allowed me to think the line element in newer ways opening up my work to greater variety of results. So now I have more diversity in my drawing which is something that excites me, although it’s still very new and in need of reflection before it gets shown. A lot of artists are looking for a unique style which I think might work only in few cases. What I’m aiming at is to produce a body of work that is the most idiosyncratic in its results. I love to see the transformation in my drawing because it gives me a sense of change every couple of months. It’s important for me to avoid a sense of boredom in studio practice or else its just like baking the same bread every day. I got to have the sense of not knowing exactly what is going to happen next, to be a little frightened about the next day’s work.

Lately I started avoiding the banality of a line of works on the wall while assembling the expositions of my work. I’m experimenting with panels that are put together by displaying papers and canvases in an informal non-aligned way. Each work gains intensity by the proximity of the others because of the dialog between different subjects, dimensions and volumes. It makes sense to show them that way because it points out at once the common elements of the apparently disconnected subjects.

In the near future, I’ll be starting to show my work out of Portugal. Having the possibility to take my work abroad became simpler and cheaper by shifting to paper based work. And I like the possibility to see great museums and galleries while exhibiting my work. On the other hand, I want to make at least one AIR program a year because it breaks my habits and forces me to regroup my thoughts about what I’m doing. Being away from my studio makes me more permeable to new things, giving me the chance to really look at things with a new receptiveness.