‘Fragments of conversations and everyday situations’ is the new exhibition at the Ala da Frente municipal gallery in Vila Nova de Famalicão, which opened on Saturday (March 1). The work of artist Pedro Tropa can be seen at the gallery until June 14. Admission is free.
The curator of Ala da Frente, António Gonçalves, emphasises that the artist Pedro Tropa ‘makes visible, through drawing and photography, a universe of sensations that result from contact with nature through his wanderings through it, taking in memories, sensations, impressions, records of his conversations, his readings, the everyday things that surround him’.
Consisting of 23 drawings, some of which contain textual reflections by the artist, the collection on display also includes two photographic records, which, in the curator's view, constitute an interregnum to the horizon line established by Pedro Tropa's fine art works at the municipal gallery.
‘When the limit of photography's objectivity ends, that of drawing begins,’ comments Pedro Tropa, explaining that "drawing, in my opinion, is a space for creative exploration without limits, due to its simplicity (...) it always comes from observations of nature, the landscape in particular. My subject is always the landscape."
The City Council's Councillor for Culture, Pedro Oliveira, emphasises that this ‘is yet another opportunity to admire the work of yet another extraordinary artist’; in the year, that Ala da Frente is marking its tenth anniversary.
Born in 1973 in Santarém, Pedro Tropa's artistic work incorporates drawing, photography, text and sound. He trained at Ar.Co - Centre for Art and Visual Communication and was awarded grants from the Luso-American Development Foundation / Institute of Contemporary Art (School of The Art Institute of Chicago, USA) and the Oriente Foundation in 1998, 1999 and 2004. He has been a teacher since 2007 and is currently in charge of the photography department at Ar.Co. Since 2009, he has been a member of the Quadrado Azul Gallery artists' group, and is a founding member of the “Matéria Simples” project, together with Teresa Santos and João Pimenta Gomes. His work was documented in the film ‘Quatro’ by director João Botelho and, in 2021, he was awarded the FLAD Drawing Prize.
He has been exhibiting since 1992 and is represented in various collections and editions, including: ‘Desenho’ (2003), Assírio & Alvim/Fundação Carmona e Costa; “Cahier de Cent Dessins” (2008), ’Travessia. Evidence. O Monte Rosa’ (2009) and “Sim Zut” (2016), Galeria Quadrado Azul; “Fotografia Modo de Usar” (2015) and “Itinerário e Transmissão” (2023), Documenta; “Os inquéritos [à Fotografia e ao Território]” (2016), CIAJG; and “Efeméridas, Mercado, Antena, Obelisco” (2020), Appleton Square.
The exhibition ‘Fragments of conversations and everyday situations’ by Pedro Tropa is free to enter and can be visited from Tuesday to Friday, from 10h00 to 17h30, and at weekends from 14h30 to 17h30, in the Front Wing, located in the Barão da Trovisqueira Palace, where the Bernardino Machado Museum is housed, in Rua Adriano Pinto Basto in Vila Nova de Famalicão.
