Inês Coelho da Silva

B. 1996 in Fiães, Santa Maria da Feira, Portugal.

Education

2014 - 2018  Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts - Sculpture, Faculdade de Belas Artes da Universidade do Porto, Porto, PT

Solo Exhibitions

2020     Tropeçar não é cair, MUSEU, Círculo de Artes Plásticas de Coimbra, PT

2018     Objetos têxteis, Escola Artística Soares dos Reis, Porto, PT

2018     Sal, Guimarães noc noc 2018, Guimarães, PT

2018     Sobre o Estado do Tempo, Galeria Geraldes da Silva, Porto, PT

Selected Group Exhibitions

2021     Together it Seams, Standpoint Gallery, London, UK

2020     So Close, Side x Side Contemporary, Washington, USA

2020     MA and Other Postgraduates 2020, Atkinson Gallery, Somerset, UK

2020     Work in Progress, Royal College of Art, London, UK

2019     Below the Washing Line, Royal College of Art, London, UK

2019     Imodo, Biblioteca Municipal de Santa Maria da Feira, Feira, PT

2019     Encontrar um CLICK num palheiro, Centro Comercial de Cedofeita, Porto, PT

2019     Exposição de Vidro e sobre Vidro, Museu de Alberto Sampaio, Guimarães, PT

2018     Uma nota para ti próprio, Avenida Rodrigues de Freitas, 299, Porto, PT

2018     Young Urban Performances Festival, Kunsthalle Osbanbrück, Osbanbrück, DE

2018     Projeções 2018, Lugar do Desenho, Fundação Júlio Resende, Gondomar, PT

2018     Ainda, FBAUP, Porto, PT

2018     BASE Lx, Forte Santo António da Barra, Cascais, PT

2018     Desenhar na incerteza – Do Processo ao Projeto, FBAUP, Porto, PT

2018     HIATO, Fórum da Maia, Maia, PT             

2017     Tubo de Ensaios, FBAUP, Porto, PT

2017     SIM Parte II, CACE Cultural, Porto, PT

Artist Residencies

2020     B#Side Peripheral Memories, IoDeposito, Friuli Venezia Giulia, IT

2020     iobject, Freud Museum, London, UK

2019     Female Land Artist Wanted, Current Corporate, Treviso, IT

Publications

2021     U+ZINE 4, Food, Plurality University Network, FR

2020     Papaya, RCA Feminist Society, UK

2020     Portuguese Emerging Art 2020 Green Edition, Emerge AC, PT

2020     Issue 1, The Studio, Haus_a_rest, UK

2019     Universo da Escultura: Inês Coelho da Silva, Andromeda, PT

2018     70th anniversary of TUP, S/CISMO, PT

2018     Issue 6, Interior, L8ndscapes, FR

2015-17    SIM and NÃO independent publications, PT

There are many ways in which a portrait can occur. An object can represent someone/something specific, but a person can see themselves represented in an object that was not necessarily made to depict them. Portrait objects are, therefore, not only messengers but receptors themselves, which influence and are influenced by other messengers/receptors. Two bodies, such as a sculptural object and a spectator, may conduct a variety of intangible conversations that cannot be anticipated, as they both take part in constructing a message that is only effective within their own dialogue. The independence that my objects acquire turn them into reliable portraits of the viewer’s intimate thoughts, emotions, desires, and fears, as they are not compromised to a single reading or an explanation. The message is not within the object but in the conversation with the other. For a piece to be broad enough to accommodate the other and allow them to enter it and modify it, it must feel slightly uncomfortable for both the maker and each observer. The perfect completion of the object – and the sense of relief of considering it “finished”, whatever that might mean – would only feel so for one person, one specific identity, and therefore deny all others. By getting closer to what one might consider complete, it would distance itself from another person’s notion of complete. Instead of solved pieces of work, like monologues, I am aiming to produce space for a dialogue, a discussion. My work arises from my autobiographical concerns but only exists when the other’s personal narratives populate the objects with various readings, interpretations, and sensations. It is uncomfortably incomplete, to be completed in ones’ mind and body. It could be, and yet, it is not. It is almost, but not even. And so, there is room for the other to add, to remove, to reiterate, to react, to imagine, to project, to reflect.

The food elements I combine with textiles and wood, such as spices, seeds, grains, are often overlooked. Although they are very familiar to most of us (even if in the quality of collective memory), there is a strangeness in seeing them individually, apart from the context of a group or a meal. Here, they conquer a new context: the context of their own presence. They become shapes, shadows, smells, weights, pendulums, supports. They change with time, ageing, shrinking, disappearing, but also with physical proximity. While the observer gets closer to encounter the details, their breath interferes with the piece’s stability and configuration, even if momentarily. These objects are physically fragile and metaphysically vulnerable. Words do not demystify that physical encounter or replace it. Here, “to know” can never overlap “to feel”, and that is the primordial request. To feel, to care, to notice, to touch, to like, to hate, to sense, to remember, to love, to react, to reject, to enjoy, to forget, to imagine, to alter, to pretend, to do, to undo, to knot, to unknot.