Adriana Proganó, Andreia Santana, Bruno Zhu, Maria Trabulo, René Tavares and Rita Ferreira are the EDP Foundation’s New Artists Award finalists. The artists will participate in a collective exhibition to be held at maat in October 2022, when the winner will be selected.
The more than 700 submissions to this 14th edition of the award were reviewed by a Selection Panel of Judges made up of curators Luís Silva, Luísa Santos and Sara Antónia Matos, who will also be responsible for curating the collective exhibition.
Curators Luís Silva, Luísa Santos and Sara Antónia Matos “were able to witness the great merit and work capacity of artists in Portugal”. Although age is not one of the selection criteria, “there was an emphasis on a generation of artists under 40 who are currently carving their way, thanks to the conceptual and formal quality of their work, within both the national and international artistic production scenes. Despite very different formal, material and narrative premises, the research work conducted by all the nominees reveals some fundamental thinking about our place and our agency in contemporary societies”, the curators added.
The award is an initiative of the EDP Foundation, and it aims to incentivise new creation and promote contemporary art values. Therefore, applications by artists at the start of their career, either Portuguese nationals, whether or not they live in Portugal, and foreign nationals living in Portugal, are eligible.
The winner will be chosen by an Award Panel of Judges, made up of figures of renowned merit (to be announced soon) in the fields of plastic and visual arts, and will receive a 20-thousand-euro prize.
The winners of previous editions of the New Artists Award are Joana Vasconcelos, Leonor Antunes, Vasco Araújo, Carlos Bunga, João Maria Gusmão + Pedro Paiva, João Leonardo, André Romão, Gabriel Abrantes, Priscila Fernandes, Ana Santos, Mariana Silva, Claire de Santa Coloma and Diana Policarpo.
Artists’ biographical notes
ADRIANA PROGANÓ (1992, Luzern, Switzerland) lives and works in Lisbon, Portugal. She has a graduate and post-graduate degree in Plastic Arts from ESAD.CR, and between 2015 and 2016 she studied Painting at the Accademia di Belle arti di Venezia, in Italy. She attended an artists’ residency in 2020 at Thirdbase, in Lisbon. She has held regular exhibitions since 2017, with the following solo exhibitions worth a special mention: Garden, Lehmann + Silva Gallery, Porto, 2018; BAD BEHAVIUOUOR, Boavista Gallery, Lisbon, 2019; Oouups, Zé dos Bois Gallery, Lisbon, 2019; We are all ducks wanting to be horses, Casa da Cerca – Contemporary Art Centre, Almada, 2020; Fall-Winter Collection, Bertrand Bookshop, EGEAC, 2021. Among the collective exhibitions, the following stand out: Cerveira International Art Biennale, 2017; Sonic Youth, Municipal Art Gallery, Almada, 2019; Homework, Madragoa Gallery, Lisbon, 2020.
ANDREIA SANTANA (1991, Lisbon, Portugal) lives and works in New York. She graduated in Plastic Arts from ESAD.CR, took part in the Independent Studies Programme at Maumaus, in Lisbon, and in the MFA Studio Art programme at Hunter College – CUNY, New York, under a Fulbright/Carmona e Costa Foundation scholarship. Her work has been shown internationally in institutions such as: Belém Cultural Centre; Serralves Foundation’s Museum of Contemporary Art; In extenso (Clermont-Ferrand, France); José de Guimarães International Centre for the Arts; Hangar – Artistic Research Centre; Spazio Leonardo/Leonardo Assicurazioni–Generali Milano, Italy; Elvas Contemporary Art Museum; Filomena Soares Gallery; Porto Municipal Gallery; Peninsula Art Space, New York; Lisbon Municipal Galleries; Chiado 8. Santana has received several awards, prizes and scholarships, including: the NOVO BANCO Revelation Prize; a Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Visual Arts scholarship; the Criatório grant (PLÁKA – Porto City Council); the DucatoPrize (Parma and Piacenza); and the Expositions – Gulbenkian support from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s delegation in France.
BRUNO ZHU (1991, Porto, Portugal) is an artist who lives and works between Amsterdam and Viseu. Some of his recent projects were shown at HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark in Graz, the X Museum in Beijing, the Fri Art in Freiburg, the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem, the UKS (Unge Kunstneres Samfund/Young Artists’ Society) in Oslo, and Kunsthalle Lissabon in Lisbon. Zhu is a member of “A Maior”, an exhibition project held inside a clothing and household products store in Viseu.
MARIA TRABULO (1989, Porto, Portugal) lives and works between Porto and Berlin. Her artistic practice is defined by an interdisciplinary approach. She exhibits her work regularly, both in solo and collective shows, within various exhibition contexts. Trabulo has taken part in frequent artists’ residencies, namely in Germany, Austria, France, Greece, Italy, Iran and Portugal. She co-founded the space In Spite Of (2018–2020) and the Expedição project (2013–2015), both held in Porto. Trabulo completed her Master’s Degree in Art & Science at the Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien (Vienna) and graduated in Plastic Arts from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto. Her most recent exhibitions and projects were held in: Towards Gallery, Toronto; Les Laboratoires d'Aubervilliers, Paris; Porto Municipal Gallery; Deegar Platform, Teheran; Serralves Foundation’s Museum of Contemporary Art; Neue Galerie Innsbruck – Tiroler Künstler:innenschaft, Innsbruck; Bode-Museum, Berlin; Boavista Gallery, Lisbon; See You Next Thursday, Vienna.
RENÉ TAVARES (1983, São Tomé e Príncipe) lives and works in Lisbon. He graduated from the National School of Fine Arts of Dakar (now National School of the Arts), Senegal. In 2008–2009, he won a scholarship at the Regional School of Fine Arts of Rennes (now part of the European Higher School of Fine Arts), in France, to conduct his plastic research in that city. At the same time, Tavares attended the photography course at the ARC/Rennes project and in 2011 he attended a Master’s Degree in Art and Heritage Science at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon. His works have been exhibited in spaces and at events such as: afrOurban (USA), El Pueblo Resistente (Venezuela), Chaillot – National Theatre of Dance (France), City Museum (now Museum of Lisbon – Palácio Pimenta, Portugal), Venice Architecture Biennale (Italy), Norval Foundation (Cape Town), Ningxia Chinese Calligraphy Academy (China), São Tomé e Príncipe Arts and Culture Biennale. More recently, he was elected Africa’s Most Influential New Artistic Talent, in the 2018 edition of the FNB Art Joburg, in Johannesburg.
RITA FERREIRA (1991, Óbidos, Portugal) lives and works in Lisbon. She graduated in Painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon. In 2020, Ferreira received the Millennium BCP Foundation Acquisition Prize – Emerging Talent, and in 2016 she won the National Centre for Culture’s Young Creators Scholarship. Ferreira exhibits her work regularly, with the following solo exhibitions worth a special mention: Mal-me-quer, 3+1 Contemporary Art Gallery, Lisbon, 2020; Parasita, Travessa da Ermida Project, Lisbon, 2019; Tara, F2 Gallery, Madrid, 2019; Boca Seca Coluna Húmida, Diferença Gallery, Lisbon, 2017. Her collective exhibitions include: Babadum! – Rita Ferreira & Jorge Varanda, Uppercut, Lisbon; Um corpo, um rio, Liminare Gallery, Lisbon; Pintura: Campo de Observação, Cristina Guerra Gallery, Lisbon; A rooster alone does not weave the dawn, Quinta do Quetzal, Vidigueira in 2021; Mais nada se move em cima do papel, Águeda Art Centre; A Terceira margem, Anozero’19 Coimbra Biennale of Contemporary Art, Santa Clara-a-Nova Monastery, Coimbra; FOCUS: Portugal, Art Toronto, Toronto; Tudo o que é profundo ama a máscara, 3+1 Contemporary Art Gallery, Lisbon.