PENALVA, Joao
(Lisboa, 1949)
The mystery as part of the understanding of one’s own world and those of others, light beams as allegories of life and as a counterpoint to death. Joao Penalva plays with images, combines them, photographs them again and again, decontextualising them to explain the essence of things. At times, air particles vibrate towards our vision; at others, the opposite happens, making us aware of our own existence. With that willingness to talk about life through art, Penalva has produced performances, installations, photographs and videos. In 2009, he received the Bryan Robertson Prize of London and he was awarded at the Residents of Artists of Berlin (2003) and the Residence Les Récollets (Paris, 2002), among others.
