CATAGREENA AND RAQUEL PEDRO – Montes de Montes
We have the pleasure to exhibit Montes de Montes by Catagreena and Raquel Pedro .
Press Release
The trail continued outside the forest and descended through huddles of rocks vastly enlightened by the Sun, spreading up to the river’s torrent which galloped noisily like a horde of people and which we traversed by foot. With our movement we caused the clouds of nacreous butterflies to take off, flying, from the moist shores and then we began a long journey, with our feet stepping on small shadowless stones. We returned to the bank on the right side, where a low density forest of larches began. I sweated and sang my song. We seemed to be increasingly pensive but what was actually happening was quite the opposite, as we were becoming less and less thoughtful.
“Mount Analogue” by René Daumal
Catagreena (Catarina Marto’s pseudonym) and Raquel Pedro work together on a regular basis since May 2012. Their onset of the creative process was the concept “externity”, a neologism in opposition to the digital environments and ascertains the idea of an external reality exposed to the adversities and pleasures of our physical world. The motto of this project (a body of work using primarily the techniques of collage and drawing) was the attempt to establish a relationship of involution with natural landscape. It began with an intensive atelier process, which was developed through an artistic residency, last October. Their work started out with the combination of autonomous and pre-existing practice of collages. In Catagreena’s case the key concept was that of “greenolatry”: a kind of green obsessed poetics, which simultaneously advocates, explores and denounces ecology as a strategy and an instrument of a gratuitous and abusive marketing. Raquel Pedro began in 2004 a sort of graphic diary, seen as a mirror of her own questions and issues, which are explored through an autobiographical approach and using collages associated to a precise selection of materials and textual juxtapositions.
These exercises of double collage were developed in parallel to a process of accumulation of different materials, meditations, discourses, references[1], field expeditions, etc.: a subjective methodology expanded and rendered noticeable through the exchange and partition of the results of their more or less random inquiries. This was the context that gave birth to the drawing project Expeditions, trees, shrubs and a bunch of bunches.
In the era of digital hyper-reproducibility, Catagreena (with her green pencil) and Raquel Pedro (graphite) reproduce manually the images of landscapes and, through drawing, they attempt to recover a time both worldly and resistant. The pre-existing images they use are mostly photographs of natural landscapes of dissimilar antiquities (nineteenth century until today) and with different origins, ranging from old postcards to pictures of promenades or expeditions, which were part of several archives.
Each image is reproduced in drawing at least twice (one by Raquel Pedro and other by Catagreena) and, often, two times more although in this case the reproduction is created from a digital copy of the original in reverse. The drawing is always done simultaneously and on the same sheet of paper or discontinuously, following the methodology of exchange mentioned above. In the course of this working process they set in motion a game of reflections (reversal of the image and/or reflection of the reflection [in the reflection]) which is organized in multiple ways. Each image is reproduced, therefore, up to four times, inducing cognitive lapses and, consequently, subtle perceptive detours.
This work stages the notion of “doubly double” and incorporates implicitly the current issues of an era characterized by its digital dimensions, by hypercommunication, by climatic anguishes and consumerism.
Acknowledgements: Aida Castro e Frédéric Strainchamp, Alexandre Páris, Filipe Felizardo, Elisa Gutierrez, Manuel J. Neto, Rita Raposo, Andreia Poças.
Biography
Catagreena
“Catagreena” is, since 2009, the pseudonym of the artist Catarina Marto, with a body of work using collage techniques, and yet not exhibited publicly: “Catagreena is born on undetermined times, or, better said, she reappears punctually, she is an intermittence. An “inactivist”. She is obsessively focused on what she selected and chose as her main motif: the green colour.”
Catarina Marto (Lisbon, 1977) Lives and works in Lisbon, Portugal.
She holds a Maîtrise in Plastic Arts on the Université Paris-8, St. Denis-Vincennes (title: “Le végétal en tant que matériau dans l’art contemporain”, under the guidance of Liliane Terrier, 2003) and a master degree in Museology on FCSH-Universidade Nova de Lisboa (title: “Museological issues of video in contemporary art”, under the guidance of Helena Barranha, 2011 – http://run.pt/handle/103662/7271). She attended the advanced course of Maumaus – School of Visual Arts (2005-07).
She co-organized the cycle “Destruction” in the venue O Monte (2006), where she was also the curator of Raquel Pedro’s exhibiton “Mais I Menos”. In 2008-09, she curated the exhibition program “Para a Internidade…” (http://paraainternidade.blogspot.pt), in Nouvelle Librairie Française, and she was part of the jury for the “Festival d’ Images Artistiques Vidéo”. She is one of the members of the collective, with Maria Mire and Aida Castro, that organized the cycle “Télèthèque, Encontros Videográficos” (2010 – http://teletheque.blogspot.pt) which took place at the Institut Français au Portugal. During the years of 2010 and 2011 she wrote art exhibition reviews for “Gate Galleries”, a contemporary arts guidebook. In 2011, she also accompanied the residences of Ghost, at the Ateliers Re.Al and wrote an essay for the catalogue “Ghost-Book”, under the title “Untitled (uncertainty)”. In May 2013, invited to lead a talk on Mónica Baptista’s exhibition, “Hotal”, Casa da Imagem, Oporto.
As an artist, Ana Catarina Marto participated in several projects and collective exhibitions (with works ranging from photography to video and installation), namely: “Anteciparte’06” (Lisboa), “Monitor II” at the venue PêssegosPráSemana (2007, Porto), “Tudo Menos a Palavra?…” at Instituto Camões (2008, Lisboa), the book Acto#09 (2009), the online magazine Magnética (2011) and Residências 12 at Fórum Cultural de Cerveira (2013), in which she presented a piece realized in an artistic residency in collaboration with Raquel Pedro, with whom she develops her work under the pseudonym of Catagreena.
She is represented in the PLMJ Collection and other private collections. www.anamnese.pt
Raquel Pedro (1978, Lisbon) Lives and works in Lisbon, Portugal.
Graduated in Fine Arts – Painting, at FBAUL (University of Lisbon). In 2004 she was in Prague (Czech Republic) working at Prague’s Contemporary Arts Center (www.fcca.cz), under the European scholarship program Leonardo da Vinci.
She is currently working in the field of mental health (Psychosocial Rehabilitation), in which she applies art within therapeutic contexts. She has been developing her knowledge in the field of Cognitive Sciences and studying specifically creativity and cognition.
She has done solo exhibitions of her work (2006 MIM – Mais I Menos, graphic diaries, curated by Catarina Marto; 2003 Mafra Cultural Center, Casa D. Pedro V) and participated in collective exhibitions (namely 2014 which sardine are you? archaeological nucleus gallery, Lisboa; 2014 Montes de Montes, Má Arte gallery, Aveiro; 2014 17ª biennial de Cerveira exhibition, Carpe Diem, Lisboa; 2013 ART.IN, A.P.E.P. gallery, Lisboa; 2013 Residências 12 at Cultural Center, Cerveira; 2011 16th biennial de Cerveira; 2010 first drawing prize Mestre Severo Portela, in Almodôvar; 2007 exhibition of former students of FBAUL, at the Rectory of the University of Lisbon; 2004 she co-curated, with Gabriel Kotiková, the exhibition JelenoviPivoNelej of the artists Eva Kotatkova and Silvina Arismendi at Galerie Jeleni, Prague; 2003 Contemporary Art Collection, Perve Galerie and Júlio de Matos Hospital; 2003 Oporto Art – 2nd fair of modern art, Exponor; 2002 XV Salão Primavera, Art Gallery, Casino Estoril; among others). Her work has been published (2010 Le Monde Diplomatique, portuguese edition, nº 48 and 2009 Acto#09) and she is represented in several collections (Centro Nacional do Voluntariado, Câmara Municipal de Mafra, Câmara Municipal de Almodôvar, Fundação Bienal de Cerveira, Galeria Má Arte and other private collections). She is member of a collective which gathers former students from FBAUL and works punctually with other artists/authors. She´s author of several illustrations.
She collaborates regularly with the Education Service of Culturgest and Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian.
In October 2012 she participated in an artistic residency with Catarina Marto at Fundação Bienal de Cerveira, in the town of Vila Nova de Cerveira
www.ma-arte.net/?autores=raquel-pedro
Catagreena e Raquel Pedro
2014 Montes de Montes, Má Arte gallery, Aveiro http://www.ma-arte.net/
2014 17ª biennial of Cerveira exhibition, Carpe Diem, Lisboa
2013 ART.IN, A.P.E.P. gallery, Lisboa
2013 17ª biennial of Cerveira, Vila Nova de Cerveira
2013 Residências 12, Fundação Bienal de Cerveira
2012 Artistic residency, Fundação Bienal de Cerveira, casa Pintor Jaime Isidoro, V.N. Cerveira
(https://www.behance.net/gallery/6071221/Artistic-residency)