raquel gralheiro
Porto, Porto, Portugal
About raquel gralheiro
Raquel Gralheiro is an ironist who works upon a certain threshold of what is tasteful in order to analyse the relation between art and decor. Her canvas, excessive and provocative, are always a means to represent the figure as an element that contrasts with various standards, as if someone was living on the wallpaper, on the sofa's pattern, on the poster.
The concept of excess, through infinite details and chromatic profusion is vital for the interpreting of the critical charge, which characterizes this artist. The figure is not merely placed against a background; it is in a competition, also as an excessive figure itself, a derivation or an emanation of its surroundings, as if it was a result of the decorative euphoria. Ultimately, it works out as a clear criticism to the objectification of the individual, the objectification of women, directly implying them with the question of superficial pose and ornament. The woman is way beyond what is expectable; it is under layers and layers of acculturation, which massacre her and create a complex meaning regarding what she can still reveal as natural.
Usually fascinated by the figure of women, Raquel Gralheiro takes on an extreme exploration of the female body and imaginary, while stronghold for desire and sophistication. It seems allusive to luxury, given the invariable notion of refinement, as it also fatally alludes to eroticism, granting power to the figures, defining for them a very specific personality which will deal with stereotypes long entrenched in society. All these facts lead to a clear usage of the taste clichés of which contemporary communication abuses. Women as an advertising instrument, women as a means to appeal to senses and subdue the spectator, a woman strongly weakened by that which grants her more distinction and, to a certain extent, power. The Woman in a reductive manner.
It is funny how monitoring the limitations of taste may come so close to the irresistibility of figures. The more perfect they are to arouse desire, the closer they come to dismiss aesthetical balance, entering the domain of exaggeration or vulgarity. The work done by Raquel Gralheiro is a long thesis on the border between art and shock, invariably finding a means to provoke her major goal. Among the infinity of colours and patterns, woman is presented immerse in such romanticism both sweetened and instigator, very close to being both adolescent and fantasist with sensuality. Lascivious.
Paintings by Raquel Gralheiro seem to come from the times of the girlish feuilletons, very popular decades ago. They could be studies for the covers of such books, which were abundantly sold in magazine stands. Each painting is ultimately a narrative note, which tells us about the hope a certain woman has to find a certain Prince Charming, setting everything by her emotional impulse, showing hearts as the maximum symbol for passionate anxiety. At the risk of not finding Prince Charming from animals, which are not toads, the woman seems to assume de idea of disaster among genders, the difficult understanding, and the ungrateful search for nothing. Women present themselves as apparently irresistible and, nevertheless, lonely, as if it were an existential condemnation, an insurmountable solitude created by definition.
I think of the idea of women who live on the wallpaper, because I believe that, ultimately, they lead themselves back to the role of adornment, as every other element on the painting. They adorn their own emotions, they are mere illustrations of that feuilleton romanticism which, no longer in use and oneiric, alienates them from reality. They are not women, they are impossible characters, from the beginning, impossible to reach and they appear in the image as ideal references, archetypes now revised in contemporary drapery. If they like and whom they like, maybe they only to the walls do confess it.
Valter Hugo Mãe
Education:
RAQUEL GRALHEIRO
1969, 20 July. Raquel Gralheiro was born in Viseu, Portugal.
1987/90, Studied Artistic Draw at High School of Arts ( E.S.A.P.), Oporto, Portugal.
1993/99, Studied Painting at the Fine Arts University (F.B.A.U.P.), Oporto, Portugal.
Events:
Public Collections
IPO, Porto, Portugal
ACBEU, Salvador- BA, Brazil
Museum of Modern Art of Bahia, Salvador, Brazil
Instituto Politécnico of Viseu, Portugal
Joaquim Nabuco Foundation, Recife, Brazil
Caja Castilla - La Mancha, Spain.
Youth Foundation, Portugal.
Exhibitions:
Solo Exhibitions
2019, “My Chinese Zodiac”, Nanjing Fine Art University Museum, China
2018, “My chinese Zodiac” SCMM, Macau, China
2016, “Pinturas recentes”, Armazém, Porto, Portugal
2015, "Recnt works", Republican days Artes, Vila Nova de Cerveira, Portugal
2013, “Recent Works”, The Yeatman Hotel, Porto, Portugal
“Pet-à-Porter”, Galerie Ludwig Trossart, Antwerpen, Belgium
“Pet à Porter III”; Museu Amadeo Souza-Cardoso, Amarante, Portugal
2012, “Pet à Porter II”; Trema Arte Contemporânea, Lisboa, Portugal
2010, “Check my trip”, Cooperativa Árvore, Oporto, Portugal
2008, “Garden of secrets”; Magdalena Kruzevska, London, England
“Borboleta Town”, Galeria Sala Maior, Porto, Portugal
2007, “Boys love Dolls – Part II”, Fibak Gallery, Warsow, Poland
2006, “Boys Love Dolls”; TinT Art gallery, Thessaloniki, Greece
2005, “Servicios utiles para la mujer y el hombre”; Tierra Fiertil Gallery, Buenos Aires, Argentina
“Jumping hearts II”, O.M. Gallery, Penafiel, Portugal
2004, “Caixinha de surpresas/ Boîte à surprise”, Virgílio Gallery, São Paulo- SP, Brazil
“Paintings in pieces”, installation, Por Amor à Arte Gallery, Porto, Portugal
“I love you”, ACBEU Gallery, Salvador- BA, Brazil
2003, “Jumping hearts”, Museum of Modern Art
Bahia, Salvador - BA, Brasil
2002, “Two Portuguese Girls”, Carmen de la Calle Gallery, Jerez de la Frontera, Spain;
“Recent works” TinT, Thessaloniki, Greece;
“Tutti-frutti Shewing-gum”, Joaquim Nabuco Foundation, Recife, Brazil;
“Recent works”, Diana Gallery, Athens, Greece
2001, “Je me suis dans les teintes”, Por Amor a Arte Gallery, Oporto, Portugal
2000, " Giroflé, Giroflá", OM Gallery, Penafiel, Portugal.
1999, "Strawberry room", Por Amor à Arte Gallery, Oporto, Portugal.
