Xana B

"Xana concluded his studies in painting at the Escola Superior de Belas-Artes in 1984. He has been living in Lagos (Portugal) since. Xana began to participate in group exhibitions in 1981 at Lis' 91, International Exhibition of Drawing. He integrated the exhibition Onze Anos Depois in 1983, held at ESBAL with a group of colleagues that would become a key generation in the Portuguese art context; amongst others, Pedro Proença and Manuel Vieira, who co-founded the "Homeostética" group (Ivo, Manuel Vieira, Pedro Proença, Pedro Portugal, Xana and Fernando Brito) with Xana, having presented exhibitions between 1983 and 1986. At this stage, Xana held his first individual presentations at the Diferença and Módulo galleries (1985 to 1987).

From the start, Xana has built his work on simple, abstract forms, or these in the state of their becoming. His vocabulary is composed of strikingly cheerful sets of spirals, polyhedrons, ogives, webs, crystals, satellite-type forms, "comets", snakes, marbles, wavy lines, all realised in high colour and imbued with an undeniably festive flair. From early on, Xana began to work with three-dimensional mediums: structures in wood, papier-mâché and acrylic (Galeria Módulo, 1986) or cut out wood,...