An overview of the radical universe and pictorially committed Portuguese painter José Loureiro’s work.
This edition is published on the occasion of the eponymous exhibition in 2024 in Frac Grand Large, Dunkirk. Imagined by graphic designers In the Shade of a Tree, it comprises three independent notebooks, each with its own storyline. First is made up of texts that interweave José Loureiro's fiction and his thought on gesture, with Julie Gilbert's poetic echo. Second frame brings together all the paintings on display and in dialogue, while the third offers a singular plunge into the details taken from the heart of the motifs and colors. Thwarting linearity as much as chronology, this book is a beautiful escape and an invitation to look at painting from every angle.
Born in 1961 in Mangualde (Portugal), José Loureiro discovered painting at the age of sixteen and went on to study at the Lisbon School of Fine Arts. He began exhibiting at the end of the 1980s. An initial, expressive style marked by almost surrealist touches rapidly evolved into a more bare-bones approach. In 1993, his work took on a more abstract character that was grounded in his research into grids. The latter continue to inform his work today as Loureiro explores the mechanics of gesture, questions of scale, the synthesis of movements and the autonomy of colour.
