David Gonçalves

Statement

Moving around from side to side. By need and will of trying out, of searching, looking​: To go. ​Settling here, working there, creating​. ​ I´m a nomad who is always taking decisions due to the impossibility of transporting everything​, focusing on the essential for each moment. ​​T​he things are light, movable and with the possibility to transform in​to​ others​, to​ multiply. On blank pages lines are made by the folding of the paper using only the hands and nails. Paper ​folding paper that opens and closes itself, obeying to grids and exploring the division and sub division of different arrangements. Other sheets are teared apart, taking their own way. Front and back. By folding I bring ​forth what​’​s in the back ​ in to the front, questioning about the bi-dimensionality of the material – the paper – and discover what ​it​ has. I have this attention​,​ therefore I communicate it. The back of the sheet is also a page,.​ it also belongs. ​It´s a whole. My thinking is close to the things that deal with space and time, ​and consequently​ its relation to Man. I am a Man, and as a human that travels in different speeds, I am aware of the change of rhythms, cycles, of all the lines of time itself in space. Whil​st​ creating I concentrate on this​;​ I concentrate on me​.​ O​n the lines, the cycles​, ​the rhythms inside and outside of me.

GlogauAIR Project

My interest in the book and its format has been present in my work for some time now. I like the idea that is compact, its size and all the characteristics which connect them to its easy way of transportation. They lead me to insert it in a nomadic context. Full of content and information, this object resists and has travelled with and through time. The book is passed from hand to hand – hand, body; touch which is directly connected to the book, starting with those who write it to the ones who flip through its pages. One after another. The hand is shaping it (new forms appear). While flipping through the pages we notice that there is a certain order, a matrix which is “inevitable” since we are dealing with a book. These ir always one point that is there, present. Stapled, woven, glued. Its set, steady. Its the point which is least susceptible to be transformed. Its that same point that unifies the whole, that gathers the ideas, the drawings, defines order. The order. Keeping it together enabling all the rest. Getting rid of that point, will break everything up. Making it loose; fragile. Its dimension, together with its meaning is lost to go win one other. We will now be talking about a new object. The sheets loose themselves, they occupy a new space. Do they become autonomous? Loose strength? In this residency, I am willing to work every single page individually of a book with 320 sheets, through de folding and tearing using my hands and only adding up an external element – the graphite. The graphite brings different meanings to the paper. A solidness that is only apparent. New adjectives and possibilities of interpretations. It sends us to something far from the book. Of its flipping. It brings a visual weight to a very fragile thing which can be easily destroyed. Once all the 320 drawings are complete, my wish is to disassemble the book. Take the drawings off this format and sort them out in a new way, in order to present them in a vertical space. Issues about the space that these “new” drawings, fixed, will occupy, and its relation with the spectator will provide new challenges both conceptually and practically (issues on installation and presentation). I believe that being in a specific space with limited time as in this residence program in Berlin, where new topics for debate and confrontation are available and current, together with more space and interaction, places of discussion and of exchange, will enable me to go in depth with this project and materialize it in the best way.

CV Summary

b. 1987, Portugal

Education

• BA, Fine Arts, ARCO, Lisbon, 2010 / 2013
• Life Drawing short course, Heatherley School of Fine Art, London, 2010
• Mixed Media short course, Central Saint Martin´s School, London, 2010
• BA, Digital Arts & Multimedia, ESAD, Porto, 2006 – 2010

Residencies

• MArt – Lisbon, Portugal, 2014 / 2015 artemart.pt

Solo Shows

• 2011 Nanicamura, Galeria Projecto, V.N. Cerveira
• 2008 We have them women, Plano B, Porto

Group shows

• 2016 Mask, Geddes Gallery, London
• 2015 Mupi Project, – MArt – Commissioned by Sandro Resende, Lisbon
• 2015 Vaga Luz, Casa Museu Medeiros e Almeida, Lisbon
• 2015 Dreampire, LX Factory, Lisbon
• 2015 Mostra, Alvalade, Lisbon
• 2015 Neste tempo todo, Museu Nogueira da Silva, Braga
• 2015 Raizes, Palacio das Artes, Porto
• 2014 Equinox, GivLowe, Lisbon
• 2012 The Art Cellar, London
• 2010 Re-Act, ArtsLab, Porto

Bibliography

• raizescolab.wordpress.com – Publication about the Raizes exhibition in Palacio das Artes, Porto, 2015
• DESTRUCTION, # Host und Edeltraut, Berlin, 2011

Prizes

• Winner of the Moinho – recycled cotton paper competition, 2012

Private Collections

• Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon

Gallery