Manuel João Vieira:

HUMOR, FANTASY, AND SYMBOLS

Manuel João Vieira (b.1962) was born and studied in Lisbon, the setting for his artistic activity characterized by a critical aspect always associated with humor and a certain theatricality. One of the creators of the 80s Homeostético group (alongside Pedro Proença, Xana, Pedro Portugal, Fernando Brito, and Ivo Pereira da Silva) which advocated for intervention art, valuing a critical stance and humor. Drawing inspiration from the well-known book by Italian writer Italo Calvino, which gives its title to the composition, the artist creates a theater of strange dreamlike fantasies, with fable characters animated by an atmosphere of unsettling disturbance, paradoxes, and fears that are very characteristic of contemporary sensitivity. Stillness and dizzying movement, suspended or composite figures, between history and myth, majestic and ambiguous architectures animated with kabbalistic writings, a haunting tornado threatening intimate oceans. Images and symbols of the fundamental ambivalence between dream and reality, death and life, good and evil.

Maria João Fernandes - International Association of Art Critics (AICA)