GONÇALO FARO – Trough Wild Regions
We have the pleasure to exhibit Trough Wild Regions by Gonçalo Faro
Press Release
Through wild regions
And there was the river … fascinating…deadly…like a snake*
This exhibition is not a result of an idea, neither the group of works shown were put together as structuration of a project. It all began with a journey, a book and a film. These were the critical mass, the inspiration and the core of all the works that, in a very organic way, were done since 2018, and are now shown at the Arte Institute.
In 2015 I was compelled to follow an urge to leave everything that I was familiarized with in Lisbon and decided to go for un uncertain period of time to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. That immersion on a distant and unknown land had a dramatic importance in my life and was structural to my artistic process. Through this journey I found a way to leave behind some of the overload that I felt I was carrying in my work and was able to find different media to express my restlessness. I definitely left all that I knew as my comfort zone, only to discover that when I abandon those territories, and dare enter more darkened regions, I feel closer to express myself artistically.
After my return to Lisbon, and for academic reasons, I reproached two works of art that I came across for the first time when I was a teenager, and at that time, for reasons that only much latter I could fully understood, had a tremendous impact on me. Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and its film adaptation Apocalypse Now by Francis Ford Coppola. In these masterpieces I could now identify a subtle connection to my own artistic approach and creative process. So in a way they’re spirits –the spirit of Kurtz and Willard – inhabit the works that integrate this exhibition.
Underneath these works lies a subliminal confrontation between two powerful human constituents – the genius (the gift of artistic creation) and evil – forces which are so integral and primordial in the construction of the human identity. They approach that plunge in to the abyss of our own identity, seeking to shape something that lies in those dark – or wild – regions. What can be found there? What dangers or treasures appear when we risk that dive?
So at the same time, each work on this exhibition is an invitation to the viewer to dare that plunge in to each own personal abyss, or, reaching out for Conrad’s words, a call for the journey up the river through the wild regions and in to the Hart of Darkness.
*CONRAD, Joseph – O Coração das Trevas, p.17, Lisboa, Publicações Europa América, 1999, tradução do autor.
Biography
Gonçalo Faro, born in Lisbon in 1972, where he lives. He has a Masters in painting at Faculdade de Belas Artes de Lisboa (FBAUL), and has initiated his artistic activity in 2007. He had it’s first solo exhibition in 2010, in Lisbon, Portugal, and since, then he has participated in several solo and group exhibitions.
The body of work that he has been developing, and that has been showed in his exhibitions, emerges from an idea or perception of a progressively desensitized human being, constantly struggling with his own identity.
His work does not intend to reach to the banal or real, functioning more like a window to another dimension, where anthropomorphic creatures, animals and machines appear to the eye of the viewer, questioning him.
Having started to work in painting and drawing, with a strong expressionistic influence, his work has progressed to the use of other media, like installation, video and collage, with a more abstract content.