About "Intruso no Labirinto" by Jorge Queiroz, and "Pele de Barro" by Flávia Vieira

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DATE

24 Nov 2025

AUTHOR

Daniel Madeira

About "Intruso no Labirinto" by Jorge Queiroz, and "Pele de Barro" by Flávia Vieira

AUTHOR

Daniel Madeira

More than a language encounter, Intruso no Labirinto (Intruder in the Labyrinth) and Pele de Barro (Clay Skin) confront us with the condition of those who observe and are observed—whether in the pictorial labyrinth or through the mineral skin of the world.

We do not know who the intruder really is. Nor can we identify the dimension in which the labyrinth resides. Two-dimensionality, distorting our capacity for otherness, obscures our perception. We see and are seen. We imagine the passages between works and try to understand the represented body's journey that we follow throughout this exhibition. This is Intruso no Labirinto, an exhibition by Jorge Queiroz at CAV, curated by Miguel von Hafe Pérez.

This perceptive labyrinth, generating an impossible—or at least inaccessible—cartography, is composed mainly of drawings and paintings which reveal an evident gesturality and a predominantly vibrant palette. We intuit landscapes, fragmented moments, surreal atmospheres, and the presence of another—a body that is absent from our total capacity for perception, veiling itself from understanding in the pictorial environments created by Jorge Queiroz. Ironically, it is this absence that confers upon the visitor the intruder's role. At some point, we realize that we are the intruder. It is by inhabiting the same plane as this other that we feel we see because we are seen. Otherwise, this traveler would pass through each fragment without stopping to consider the gaze observing him from the other side of the pictorial surface. We are, after all, talking about inorganic objects that embody this notion of intrusion, which only materializes in our presence—it is within us.

The intrusion is also accentuated in plastic terms. In the works A Day Later 3, A Day Later 5, and A Day Later 2, the painting seems to make an intrusive gesture on a surface more suited to writing. In Duende, the image seems to want to explore a videographic texture. In Nó #1, Nó #2, Nó #3, and Nó #6, there is a mutual intrusion between the purely pictorial work and the foreign body that surrounds it. 1828 Que de Mots Pour si Peu des Choses appears as an alien body, deepening the sense of intrusion in the context of this exhibition.

This exhibition proposal for the cycle a vida, apesar dela is complemented by Pele de Barro by Flávia Vieira, consisting of two sculptures and an in situ intervention. It is a complementary set that, in the wake of the previous exhibition, leads to a reflection on the other from a more political perspective, fueled by the current state of the world.

We see a wall covered in clay, whose earthly dimension is called into question by the light that surrounds it. This violet hue—mentioned by Miguel von Hafe Pérez in the exhibition brochure—carries this divisive construction to another time, another dimension. It makes us believe in a museum of the future where walls are displayed as archaeological ruins; where it is explained that humanity gradually abandoned these austere and relentless structures. Suddenly, utopia has a color: violet.

Outside this space, the installation is completed by two clay bodies. While at first glance they evoke the impersonality and timelessness of minimalism, we soon become aware of the tension between the clay—gesture, fragility, transience—and the iron that supports it, a material of strength and opposition. Here, there is a reference to an ancestral period that rejects the digital and algorithmic present in which we live.

More than a language encounter, Intruso no Labirinto and Pele de Barro confront us with the condition of those who observe and are observed—whether in the pictorial labyrinth or through the mineral skin of the world.

Both exhibitions can be visited at the Pátio da Inquisição in Coimbra until November 30.

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