Sara Bichão (Lisbon, 1986) lives and works in Lisbon. She completed her undergraduate and master’s degrees in Painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts of Lisbon (2008, 2011). She has participated in several artist residencies, including Residency Unlimited (2012, USA), PIRA ADM (2016, MX), Artistes en Résidence (2017, FR), and the Centro de Artes Arquipélago (2018, PT). She has been exhibiting since 2009, with recent solo exhibitions including: Encontra-me, mato-te (2018), Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon; Coastal (2017), Barbara Davis Gallery, Houston; O meu sol chora, Communications Foundation, Lisbon; Somebody’s Address (2016) and Open Gates (2014), Rooster Gallery, New York; Recheio (2014), Carpe Diem Arte e Pesquisa, Lisbon. Notable group exhibitions include: Quando somos 2 somos três(2018, with Manon Harrois), Communications Foundation, Lisbon; Geometria Sónica (2018), Centro de Artes Arquipélago, São Miguel, Azores; Chama (2018), Atelier-Museum Júlio Pomar, Lisbon; Extática Esfinge (2017), CIAJG, Guimarães; Curar e Reparar (2017), Anozero Biennial, Coimbra; O Que Eu Sou (2017), MAAT, Lisbon; Now, this is fucking too hot (2017, with Manon Harrois), Les Ateliers, Clermont-Ferrand; Puras Cosas Nuevas (2017), Pantalla Blanca, Mexico City; }{ { } (2015, with Omar Barquet), Diagrama, Mexico City; Eccentric Exercise II (2015), KCB, Belgrade; Soundless Harmonies (2014), Artopia Gallery, Milan; Eccentric Exercise I (2013), Les Gens Heureux, Copenhagen; Uma Coisa a Seguir à Outra (2013, with Miguel Ângelo Rocha), Quadrum Gallery, Lisbon; Extending the Line (2012), Arevalo Gallery, Miami. Her work is represented in several public collections, including: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation; MAAT; Lisbon City Council; Fidelidade Mundial; Figueiredo Ribeiro; António Cachola; Norlinda e José Lima; Midfirst Bank Arizona; Benetton Foundation, among others. She has been awarded by Fidelidade Mundial – Young Painters (honorable mention, 2009), Anteciparte (selected artist, 2009), and BPI/FBAUL (1st prize in painting category, 2008).
Sara Bichão’s work unleashes the gentle and the violent that emerge from the threshold of language. It possesses the duality of a nursery rhyme, the incompleteness of a riddle, the fluctuation of poetry, and the interruption of stammering. The space it inscribes is as luminous and sunny as it is dark and devastating, without a definitive textual framework or a closed narrative. “What is the thing, what is it?” is exactly that—a question without an answer, which takes us back to childhood and the early philosophical unease. (...) “My work is affirmation and doubt,” says Sara Bichão. Naturally, it has to be this way: the essential dialectic that exposes and problematizes central points of contemporary art, and that above all continues an experience of the world full of surprises and revelations. As for us, we are left to protect ourselves against the torment of the enigma that her work ignites, serenely and continuously repeating, “What is the thing, what is it?”
Text by Marta Mestre.
From this residency came a text written by Gonçalo M. Tavares. “Duas mulheres, o guincho do porco” (Two Women, the Squeal of the Pig) emerged from the observation, dialogue, and reflection surrounding this simultaneous residency of artists Sara Bichão and Rita Morais. Porto/Post/Doc. was a partner in this Residency. Text here.
Credits
collaboration with Rita Morais partnership with port/ post/ doc
