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AS2_3099

The 2023 Sovereign Portuguese Art Prize

Launched in 2021, The Sovereign Portuguese Art Prize increases the international exposure of artists in Portugal or of the Portuguese diaspora, whilst raising funds for arts education programmes in the country.

How it works

01

Nomination and Shortlisting

The Prize invites contemporary artists, nominated by a board of independent art professionals, to each enter up to three artworks online. A judging panel comprised of world-class art experts then shortlists the 30 best artworks from a range of digital images. Click here for T&Cs.

02

Exhibition

The shortlisted artworks are exhibited in Portugal. Members of the public can enjoy the artworks and engage in the public vote. Local students are offered the opportunity to engage in educational programming.

At the exhibition, the artworks are judged for a second time and voted on by the public. The judges scores are aggregated, and a Grand Prize winner is named.

03

Public Vote

To increase exposure for the artists, the general public are invited to cast a vote online or in person for their favourite shortlisted artwork. The most popular artwork is awarded the Public Vote Prize.

04

Sale of Artworks

The shortlisted artworks besides the Grand Prize winner will be sold at a fixed price and are split evenly between the artists and the local expressive arts programming.

Artists receive the same split as they would through a gallery and Associação SAF, the Portuguese arm of The Sovereign Art Foundation, receives the other half to fund expressive art programs for disadvantaged children in need in Portugal.

 

The Prizes

There are two cash prizes available to shortlisted artists. In addition, all shortlisted artists enjoy increased international exposure, top tier media coverage, and the opportunity to exhibit their work publicly in Portugal.

01
Grand Prize image

Grand Prize

Awarded to the artist with the highest score from the judges.

02
Public Vote Prize image

Public Vote Prize

Awarded to the artist with the most votes from the public.

Shortlist

Ana Almeida Pinto
Estado da Arte  image
Estado da Arte
Ana Lima-Netto
No one bathes twice in the same river image
No one bathes twice in the same river
Ana Manso
Coisas selvagens, 2023 image
Coisas selvagens, 2023
Ana Santos
Bege Modigliani  image
Bege Modigliani
AnaMary Bilbao
Immutable Laws (I)  image
Immutable Laws (I)
Andreia Santana
in praise of laziness  image
in praise of laziness
Carla Filipe
História Do saneamento das águas Políticas Públicas image
História Do saneamento das águas Políticas Públicas
Carolina Pimenta
Pink & Orange image
Pink & Orange
Cássio Markowski
Conselhos para meu eu quando jovem image
Grand Prize Winner
Conselhos para meu eu quando jovem
Cristina Ataíde
Mountain House #14 image
Mountain House #14
Dan Rees
Art Now More Than Ever image
Art Now More Than Ever
Daniel Blaufuks
A viagem de barco (Partida) The Boat Trip (Departure)  image
A viagem de barco (Partida) The Boat Trip (Departure)
Daniela Krtsch
Caring image
Caring
Diogo Pimentão
Round (around) image
Round (around)
Gabriela Albergaria
Direitos da Natureza #1, #2, #4, #5, #6, #8, #9 image
Direitos da Natureza #1, #2, #4, #5, #6, #8, #9
João Francisco
Untitled - among the wreckage - truce from 12 to 15 image
Untitled – among the wreckage – truce from 12 to 15
Konstantin Bessmertny
Saint Sebastian of Acupuncture  image
Saint Sebastian of Acupuncture
Leylâ Gediz
Troubleshooter  image
Public Vote Prize Winner
Troubleshooter
Luís Nobre
Underneath #2  image
Underneath #2
Luís Paulo Costa
One thing in relation to another  image
One thing in relation to another
Mafalda Santos
Side Effects  image
Side Effects
Manuel Caeiro
Ensaio para um Volume Plano #7 image
Ensaio para um Volume Plano #7
Maria Capelo
Mountain of Heath and Rock rose  image
Mountain of Heath and Rock rose
Nuno Cera
COSMIC DEBRIS #6 (Coachella rock) 2022 image
COSMIC DEBRIS #6 (Coachella rock) 2022
Nuno Sousa Vieira
Family window & family Sculpture  image
Family window & family Sculpture
Pauline Guerrier
Plexus Solaire II  image
Plexus Solaire II
Pedro Gramaxo
Graça I  image
Graça I
Teresa Esgaio
Matter image
Matter
Vasco Araújo
“Out of the past” #6  image
“Out of the past” #6
Vera Mota
Membrana image
Membrana
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01 / 30

Ana Almeida Pinto

Estado da Arte  image

Ana Almeida Pinto

Estado da Arte
Dimension: 50 x 50 x 150cm
Medium: Iron, blown glass
Nominated by: Helena Mendes Pereira

Ana Almeida Pinto’s artistic practice reflects on human motivations, with nostalgia and the relationship between will and power as her driving force. Appropriating the physicality and symbology of the materials with which she works, she finds answers to these intriguing concepts during her creative process. Recently, her practice has developed around the observation of the ‘Territory’ from within its heritage and traditions.

The artist participated in the ‘Amar o Minho’ artistic residency, creating three public art sculptures entitled Batalha das Flores, Bruma and Paisagem Excêntrica, Barcelos, Monção and Vizela (2022). Other notable achievements include her solo exhibition, Fantasmas de Ontem e de Agora, Galeria Municipal, Montemor-o-Novo (2022) and her public art sculpture entitled Penumbra, Art and Sustainability Symposium, Braga (2018).

02 / 30

Ana Lima-Netto

No one bathes twice in the same river image

Ana Lima-Netto

No one bathes twice in the same river
Dimension: 100 x 150 x 5cm
Medium: Manual engraving on acrylic glass, metal, LEDs
Nominated by: Howard Bilton

Ana Lima-Netto graduated in Architecture from the Escola Superior de Belas Artes, Lisbon (1985). Her work reflects on the meaning of life and its transcendence. Philosophical texts are the anchor of ones creative process, as they address issues regarding the relationships and tensions inherent to human nature, our diverse cultures, and our subconscious. Line work is the common defining element of her multi-media practice, which includes drawing, sculpture and installation.

Notable exhibitions include Reminiscence or Nostalgia?, Convent of Espírito Santo Art Gallery, Loulé (2023); From Skin to Skin, Imagine, FITE, Roger Quilliot Museum, Clermont Ferrand (2022); Rosarium, Fátima Sanctuary Museum, Fátima (2022); Rien de Nouveau Sous le Ciel?, Château de Tours, Tours (2021); and From banal to Sublime, António Prates Gallery, Lisbon (2015).

03 / 30

Ana Manso

Coisas selvagens, 2023 image

Ana Manso

Coisas selvagens, 2023
Dimension: 131 x 90cm
Medium: “tie – dye”, acrylic and oil on canvas
Nominated by: Antonia Gaeta

Ana Manso’s work is ingrained deeply in the medium of painting, making the canvas or raw surface a place of encounter between the real world and the imaginary. Free of structure, order, and rationale, the language of abstraction and colour is set against traces of objects from everyday life. Driven by chance and ambiguous by nature, Manso’s works are defined by a repeated sense of appearance and disappearance, favouring instead a sense of spirituality and mystery while escaping modes of everyday life.

Manso recently participated in the International Studio & Curatorial Program, New York (2022), supported by Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian. She has exhibited regularly in Portugal and internationally, including: Ninguém. Só eu. Centro de Arte Oliva, São João da Madeira (2022); Hier, Aujourd’ hui, Demain, Mudam Luxembourg (2020); YEMA, Matadero Madrid (2018) and Yo-yo, Contemporary Projects, Museu de Serralves, Porto (2017).

04 / 30

Ana Santos

Bege Modigliani  image

Ana Santos

Bege Modigliani
Dimension: 28 x 147 x 30cm
Medium: Exhaust pipe and muffler, lacquered paint
Nominated by: Antonia Gaeta

The work of Ana Santos (b. 1982) is linked to the appropriation of found objects, which are subjected to simple acts of manipulation through a process of discovery where chance often plays an important role. Bege Modigliani belongs to a group of recent works made from pipes and other components of the exhaust system of automobiles. The artist thus creates anthropomorphic works that generate a latent ambiguity between being ready-made and objects built from scratch.

Ana Santos (n. 1983) was the recipient of the 2013 EDP Foundation New Artists Award. Her solo exhibitions include Anatema, MAAT – Museum of Art, Architecture and Technologie (2019); vis-à-vis, Visual Arts Centre, Coimbra (2022); and Spring-Summer Collection, Culturgest, Lisbon (2023).

05 / 30

AnaMary Bilbao

Immutable Laws (I)  image

AnaMary Bilbao

Immutable Laws (I)
School: Edition 1 of 1 + 2AP
Dimension: 140 x 110 x 3cm
Medium: Inkjet print on Japanese paper 70gr
Nominated by: Rute Ventura and Bruno Leitão

To create Immutable Laws (I), Bilbao starts with a film negative and makes an intervention on its surface, erasing the original image. By doing so, she hopes to initiate a dialogue between the erasure and some of the remaining traces from the original image that are now preserved. Always related to Nature, these traces present themselves as the only surviving element and allow Bilbao to expose Nature’s immutable laws in the face of human presence, which in this series are always erased or swallowed up into the whirl of Nature’s dance.

Bilbao has exhibited widely, including at Photo Basel, Basel (2022); International Studio & Curatorial Program, New York (2022); J’ai rêvé d’une fleur qui ne mourrait jamais, Curiosa section, Paris Photo, Paris (2021); Blast Effects, Opening section, Arco Madrid, Madrid (2021); and the 13th edition of EDP Foundation’s New Artists Award, MAAT, Lisbon (2019).

06 / 30

Andreia Santana

in praise of laziness  image

Andreia Santana

in praise of laziness
Dimension: 90 x 45 x 60cm
Medium: Water, glass, and bronze
Nominated by: Vanessa Arelle

Andreia Santana’s practice explores the intersection of biology and identity, incorporating living matter and performative gestures into sculptures and installations. She reflects on how these politicized materials form our understanding of the social constructs of archaeology, history and gender. Both attractive and disturbing, Santana’s sculptures, such as in praise of laziness, appear as hybrid structures. Inspired by animal survival strategies such as camouflage and ecdysis, as well as tactics of feminine seduction and protection, Santana’s oeuvre proposes a chimera beyond the categorizations of genesis, gender and habitat.

Santana is the recipient of numerous accolades, including the EDP Prize, MAAT, Lisbon (2022); the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Visual Arts Grant for Residency Unlimited, New York (2017); and the NOVO BANCO Revelação Prize (2016). Her work, Overlapses, Riddles & Spells, was recently commissioned for BoCA, CCB, Lisbon (2021).

07 / 30

Carla Filipe

História Do saneamento das águas Políticas Públicas image

Carla Filipe

História Do saneamento das águas Políticas Públicas
Dimension: 92 x 120 cm
Medium: Screen printing, “Boletim da Ordem dos Engenheiros” clippings (Year IV, December 1940, nº 48), Indian ink on paper
Nominated by: Rute Ventura and Pedro Gadanho

Carla Filipe is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice questions the permeable relationship between art objects, culture, and activism. Anchored in drawing, personal experiences and autobiography as an experimental archive of contemporaneity, Filipe builds a form of social portrait and, simultaneously, self-portraiture. By applying anthropological methodologies, she collects, interviews, and documents the traces of individual and collective narratives, critically questioning conventional discursivity on the recent past and present. Essentially, she explores transversal concepts such as territory, property, memory, identity, and representation.

Notable exhibitions include In my own language i am independente, Serralves Museum, Porto (2023); Confissões de uma baptizada, Centro de Artes do Arquipelago, Azores (2022); da cauda à cabeça, Berardo Museum, Lisbon (2014); Incerteza Viva, 32nd Bienal de São Paulo, São Paulo (2016); and Manifesta 8, European Biennial of Contemporary Art, Murcia (2011).

08 / 30

Carolina Pimenta

Pink & Orange image

Carolina Pimenta

Pink & Orange
School: Edition 1 of 1 + 1AP
Dimension: 100 x 150cm
Medium: Inkjet print on fine art paper
Nominated by: Howard Bilton

Pink & Orange is inspired by Goethe’s quote, “colour is the expression and suffering of light.” Forming part of the ‘Depois da Imagem’ series, Pimenta created the works following a study of colour and light driven from error. The images depict gradations of light that emerge from the darkness and began to shift. Nothing is in focus, so there is a feeling of ecstasy or rapture, creating proximity to painting by using textured paper.

Pimenta has exhibited throughout Portugal, including at This Side of Nowhere, Gallery Nuno Centeno, Porto (2022); Escola De Libertinagem, Galeria Francisco Fino, Lisbon (2022); Poltch, Museu do Caramulo, Caramulo (2019); Almost Famous, Gallery Nuno Centeno, Porto (2019); and Suck & Blow, The Switch, Lisbon (2019) and most recently, Depois da Imagem, Labor AGO Pavilion, Mexico City (2023).

09 / 30

Cássio Markowski

Conselhos para meu eu quando jovem image

Cássio Markowski

Conselhos para meu eu quando jovem
Dimension: 115 x 90 x 3cm
Medium: Graphite pencil, vinyl paint and gouache on linen
Nominated by: Howard Bilton

Cássio Markowski’s multimedia practice uses archives, image banks and flea markets to document sociocultural aspects of Afro-Brazilian history and the African diaspora. He gathers old botany manuals, family photographs and magazine images to build a magical visual universe. In Markowski’s world, nature emerges as a metaphor for harmony, healing, and transformation.
Concelhos para meu eu quando jovem uses detailed manufacture, graphite pencil and gouache to investigate family relationships, their influences, and contradictions within the cultural construction of Brazil. Giving rise to an act of resistance, he reflects on the idea of childhood, masculinity, and national identity.

Markowski has exhibited internationally, including at A Noite Não Adormece nos Ohos das Mnulheres, AKAA – Also Known as Africa, Paris (2023); at ARCO International Contemporary Art Fair; Lisbon (2023); Havia Um Tempo em Que Eu Podia Ser Tudo, This is Not a White Cube Gallery, Lisbon (2022/2023); and at Curitiba International Biennial of Contemporary Art, Curitiba (2018).

10 / 30

Cristina Ataíde

Mountain House #14 image

Cristina Ataíde

Mountain House #14
Dimension: 48 x 24 x 17cm
Medium: Portuguese marble and steel
Nominated by: Marie-Françoise Rouy

Ataíde started Mountain House #14 in lndia, where she worked in a stone factory along with 60 workers who made sculptures of gods and goddesses. Her work is often created on her travels around the world, with one of her practices being mountain climbing. ln this sculpture, the house has a mountain as a roof. One can enter the house through a small door or crack. ln the excavated interior of the piece, one can find the refuge of a house or a cave. ln this sense, the mountain can either be seen as a climb or as a shelter.

Notable exhibitions of Ataíde include ?A Terra ainda é redonda?, Museum Nacional de Arte Contemporanea, Lisbon (2023); Un viaje extraordinario, Galeria Beto-Galsterer, Lisbon (2023); f/ efecto espejo de los océanos, Palácio Cibeles, Madrid (20·22); Respiração Boca a Boca, MIEC, Museu lnternaciorl<31 de Escultura, Sto Tirso (2022); Todo y solo Luz, in Todo y solo Luz: Centro de Arte Faro de Cabo Mayor, Santander (2021).

11 / 30

Dan Rees

Art Now More Than Ever image

Dan Rees

Art Now More Than Ever
Dimension: 100 x 140cm
Medium: Marble ink on canvas
Nominated by: Howard Bilton

Art Now More Than Ever forms part of a body of work in which Rees uses the techniques of marbling often associated with children’s art, hobbyist art, and artisanal bookmaking. Due to the nature of marbling as a technique, the visual outcome of the works is both highly individuated and contains a degree of unpredictability. Rees has used various marbling techniques directly onto canvas, these variations are further informed by the different types of canvas and linen and the manner in which the material is folded in preparation.

Rees has exhibited throughout Europe, including at Aleatory Compensatory, Tanya Leighton, Berlin (2022); World Art Trends 1982, Galeria Nuno Centeno, Porto (2021); La Collezione Impermanente #1, GAMeC, Bergamo (2018); Les règles du jeu / The rules of the game, Casa do Povo, Espace 315, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2015); and Kelp, National Museum of Wales, Cardiff (2013).

12 / 30

Daniel Blaufuks

A viagem de barco (Partida) The Boat Trip (Departure)  image

Daniel Blaufuks

A viagem de barco (Partida) The Boat Trip (Departure)
School: Edition 2 of 3 + 2AP
Dimension: 150 x 100cm
Medium: Photographic print
Nominated by: Emma Lochery and Zé Ortigão

The series, of which The Boat Trip (Departure) is part, is not about anything. If you ask me, and I have already been asked, what these images are about, I wouldn’t be able to answer. They are not, like previous works of mine, about the Shoah or about the impossibility of photographing a window or a bowl, nor about the time that flows or the memories of tomorrow. These photographs are not variations on the same subject. They do not show a city or a group of people, in fact, there are architectures nor faces in these photographs, they are images of a world, neither before nor after human presence, but of a world despite people.

Notable achievements include exhibiting at the Centre Photographique, Rouen (2022); Jean-Kenta Gauthier, Paris (2022); Pavilhão Preto, Museu da Cidade, Lisbon (2022); Pavilhão Branco. Museu da Cidade, Lisbon (2019); and Musée Eugène Delacroix, Paris (2018), amongst others.

13 / 30

Daniela Krtsch

Caring image

Daniela Krtsch

Caring
Dimension: 140 x 130cm
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Nominated by: Bernardo Pinto de Almeida

Caring takes inspiration from activist Maya Angelou’s quote, “as you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.” This metaphor depicts hands as something to cure, to take care, to give and receive love. Krtsch questions what caring means to her, especially through body language and physical gesture. Hands are a common motif in her work, representing fear, happiness, doubt, comfort, and pain. In Caring, she painted hands of people from different ethnicities as a symbol of freedom, equality, diversity and acceptance. In essence, caring hands are an extension of our heart.

Krtsch’s notable exhibitions include Looking for Eden, Gallery Belo-Galsterer, Lisbon (2023); Take me to the dawn, Gallery Salgadeiras, Lisbon (2022); and À procura de um outro continente, Gallery Fernando Santos, Porto (2020). She has also participated in the Egeac annual programme, Lojas com histórias (2023) and an artistic collaboration for the bilingual Edition of E.E. Cummings; Erotic Poems (2022).

14 / 30

Diogo Pimentão

Round (around) image

Diogo Pimentão

Round (around)
Dimension: 150 x 130 cm
Medium: Paper and graphite
Nominated by: Marie-Françoise Rouy

Round (around) epitomises the random and performative element of Pimentão’s practice. It is neither a pencil drawing nor a delicate hand drawing as one might imagine at first glance: the work is in fact created from a set of vigorous gestures involving strong physical efforts. Round (around) was created blindly, by means of a simple device that vigorously shakes repurposed graphite fragments from other works onto paper. The scale of this drawing makes its production an almost athletic action, but with a choreographic and sound component. The graphite impact sounds like a storm, to which the artist is deeply connected.

Pimentão has exhibited at Collection Frédéric De, Goldschmidt, Cloud Seven, Brussels (2021); Disequilibrium Displacement, IMMA – Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2015); Oblique Gravity, Yvon Lambert, Paris (2013); Papier XL, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (2016). His work has been published in Drawing Backwards, Monographic Exhibition, FRAC Rouen Normandie, Rouen (2020).

15 / 30

Gabriela Albergaria

Direitos da Natureza #1, #2, #4, #5, #6, #8, #9 image

Gabriela Albergaria

Direitos da Natureza #1, #2, #4, #5, #6, #8, #9
Dimension: 123 x 150cm
Medium: Colour pencil on paper
Nominated by: Catarina Rosendo and Pedro Gadanho

Direitos da Natureza #1, #2, #4, #5, #6, #8, #9 is a drawing installation composed of seven phrases assembled in a block. The phrases are drawn in green pencil on scraps of paper repurposed from other works and are quoted from ‘Derechos de la naturaleza: Biocentric ethics and environmental policies’ by Eduardo Gudynas. The work combines themes that have long characterised Albergaria’s work, linking cultural, historical, and economic topics to nature in its Western tradition.

Albergaria has exhibited in Nature Abhors a Straight Line, Culturgest, Lisbon (2021) and at Palacio da Galeria, Tavira (2022). Her work has been published in Nature Abhors a Straight Line, Culturgest, Mousse Publishing (2021).

16 / 30

João Francisco

Untitled - among the wreckage - truce from 12 to 15 image

João Francisco

Untitled – among the wreckage – truce from 12 to 15
Dimension: 100 x 140 cm
Medium: Acrylic paint on paper
Nominated by: Howard Bilton

Untitled – among the wreckage – truce from 12 to 15 is a response to the unsustainable current reality: that we have war on our doorstep once again. The dismay and incredulity caused by our collective impotence in the face of new, daily images of destruction and pain are materialised in this image. The work also draws reference to Susan Sontag’s essay entitled ‘Regarding the Pain of Others’. The work was created with real objects, collected and arranged in the studio. Having been developed in the safety of a studio, various debris, shards and objects recreate or evoke the intolerable. In this no man’s land, between remains and fragments, a strip of witnesses stand by and observe, protected in their frames like side characters of an ancient altarpiece.

Notable exhibitions include Mille-Fleurs, Galeria 111, Lisbon (2018); Estranhos Jardins, Museu das Artes de Sintra, Sintra (2022); and Pintura sem Fim, Brotéria (2023).

17 / 30

Konstantin Bessmertny

Saint Sebastian of Acupuncture  image

Konstantin Bessmertny

Saint Sebastian of Acupuncture
Dimension: 70 x 23 x 25 cm
Medium: Wood and mixed media
Nominated by: Margarida Saraiva

Saint Sebastian of Acupuncture is a sculpture presented is an Arte Sacra’s figure of Saint Sebastian pierced by acupuncture needles instead of the conventional arrows. The work refers to a century’s old effort of the West to impose its cultural and religious values onto the Orient, and Orient’s steady resistance to accept it. Bessmertny’s artist statement is: “Art collectors of the world, unite! Artists of the world, please don’t!”

Notable exhibitions include Sunday Morning Forever, Galeria Monumental, Lisbon (2023) and One of You and All of Them, Rossi & Rossi, London (2013). Bessmertny also exhibited at the 52nd Venice Biennale, Venice (2007).

18 / 30

Leylâ Gediz

Troubleshooter  image

Leylâ Gediz

Troubleshooter
Dimension: 40 x 50 x 4 cm
Medium: Oil on canvas
Nominated by: Cristina Sanchez-Kozyreva

Typical of Gediz’s style, Troubleshooter depicts a simple arrangement with everyday items that accumulate in her studio. Reflecting the light and shadows of their environment, her still lifes do not give themselves away easily. Verging on abstraction, they instil a sense of being unable to see what’s right in front of you. Gediz named this piece Troubleshooter during the final application of paint because its surface had gained an exceptionally smooth, almost perfect texture. Despite this, she searched for irregularities, only managing to stop upon realising that she could pass this task onto the viewer.

Gediz has exhibited internationally, including at Missing Cat, Purdy Hicks Gallery, London (2023); Cosa Mentale, L’Atlas, galerie des mondes, Paris (2022); ThisPlay, ARTER Contemporary Art Museum, Istanbul (2022); and Layer from Background, Edifício EPUL de Bartolomeu da Costa Cabral, Martim Moniz, Lisbon (2022).

19 / 30

Luís Nobre

Underneath #2  image

Luís Nobre

Underneath #2
Dimension: 80 x 70 cm
Medium: Acrylic paint, graphite, Indian ink on paper
Nominated by: Howard Bilton

Nobre questions ideas about nature, survival, and the implications of the empty space between the originally observed subject and it’s drawn and displayed rendition. At its core, his work investigates ideas of nature and symbolism. Using diverse media, he explores the public and private exposition of objects and drawings, and their relationship with humanity. Underneath #2 forms part of a series that Nobre created to achieve a strong sense of depth and superficiality. His use of different techniques and mediums allow the audience to look for familiarity in the elements while engaging in a kaleidoscopic journey.

Nobre has exhibited internationally, including at the Galeria Rooster Factor 41N-9W (2013), New York and at the 1st Thessaloniki Biennale (2007). In 2021 Nobre participated in two group shows: Le Dos au Sol. Borderline Agency in the Luxemburg Ville and Rehearsal For a Community, MAAT, Lisbon. In 2019 his work was included in From Other Spaces, Municipal Gallery, Porto and Studiollo, Eugénio de Almeida Foundation, Évora.

20 / 30

Luís Paulo Costa

One thing in relation to another  image

Luís Paulo Costa

One thing in relation to another
Dimension: 120 x 140 x 4cm
Medium: Oil on canvas
Nominated by: Catarina Rosendo

As a painter, Costa believes that in order to see, he needs to paint. He is inspired by his intimate relationships with others and with the world. According to the artist, painting an image that already exists is a way of accentuating its presence and importance, akin to looking at something twice to better understand it. Essentially, Costa attempts to produce paintings that question what is rendered on the surface of the canvas.

Notable exhibitions include Janeiro-Dezembro, Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes, Lisbon (2023); Laranjas, Fundação Carmona e Costa, Lisbon (2022); Kopie, Krinzinger Projekte, Vienna (2020); Eco/Echo, Cristina Guerra Contemporary Art, Lisbon (2019).

21 / 30

Mafalda Santos

Side Effects  image

Mafalda Santos

Side Effects
Dimension: 110 x 75 x 10cm
Medium: Drawing, stamp on paper
Nominated by: Helena Mendes Pereira

Santos explores the expansive possibilities of painting and drawing, especially with site-specific interventions, allowing for a close relationship with the exhibition space. Side Effects forms part of a series of drawings inspired by the artists’ organisation of her archival materials at her studio and home. The revisiting of these materials collected over the years, such as exhibition sheets, allowed Santos to develop drawings built from the contents of exhibition hall sheets visited between 2000 and 2023. In the series, she appropriates excerpts from texts describing the “effects” caused by the works on display.

Santos has exhibited internationally, including at Histórias de uma Coleção, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon (2023); Variations Portugaises, Centre d ́Art Contemporain Meymac, Meymac (2018); Only Connect, Bloomberg Building, New York (2008); Prémios EDP 2007, Central Eléctrica do Freixo, Porto (2007); and 7 artistas ao 10o mês, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon (2005).

22 / 30

Manuel Caeiro

Ensaio para um Volume Plano #7 image

Manuel Caeiro

Ensaio para um Volume Plano #7
Dimension: 162 x 128 x 5cm
Medium: Acrylic paint on paper
Nominated by: Howard Bilton

When working in his studio, Caeiro is always drawn to thinking about the connection between painting and sculpture. To create Ensaio para um Volume Plano #7, Caeiro begins by photographing one of his sculptures, which he then renders in paint. In doing so, he uses paint to reconceptualise the original sculpture and reanalyses the relationship between two- and three-dimensionality. This method allows him to consider the destructibility and reconstruction of a theoretic object: attempting to achieve the best possible dialogue between them. According to Caeiro, painting in this matter gives him a ‘3-in-1 medium’, allowing him to reconsider the medium of paint itself.

Caeiro has participated in multiple solo and group presentations, including Light Monument // Sq. Feet, Ponces + Robles, Madrid (2017); Mikado, BetaPictoris Gallery, Alabama (2016); Down side up (Lurixs-Baró), Galeria Baró, São Paulo (2011); and O Palácio, Carlos Carvalho Arte Contemporânea, Guimarães (2020). He came first place in the Ariane de Rothschild Painting Prize, Lisbon (2005). He was shortlisted for The 2022 Sovereign Portuguese Art Prize.

23 / 30

Maria Capelo

Mountain of Heath and Rock rose  image

Maria Capelo

Mountain of Heath and Rock rose
Dimension: 135 x 150cm
Medium: Chinese Ink on Paper
Nominated by: Catarina Rosendo

Mountain of Heath and Rock rose is inspired by the film Las Hurdes, Tierra sin Pan (1936) by Luis Buñuel, in which the characters are both the inhabitants and the landscapes of the titular Spanish region, close to the Portuguese border. Based on a single frame of the film, the drawings show a mountain resembling a great wall. Capelo has drawn this mountain insistently, over a long period of time, for only by working, in front of the paper, can a true search take place. According to the artist, everything that happens on this planet leaves a trace, a testimony that is always shifting, always in peril, and always occurring in the present.

Notable exhibitions by the artist include O dia já fecha as portas, MAAT – Museu de Arte, Arquitetura e Tecnologia, Lisboa (2023); Vento Espesso, Casa-Museu Guerra Junqueiro, Porto (2022); Do Planalto se dobra a montanha, na Galeria do Palacete Viscondes de Balsemão, Porto e Zé dos Bois, Lisboa (2022); Tudo o que eu quero – Artistas portuguesas de 1900 a 2020, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisboa and cccod | Centre de Création Contemporaine Olivier Debré, Tours (2021/22). Capelo was the winner of the FLAD Drawing Prize, Lisbon (2022).

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Nuno Cera

COSMIC DEBRIS #6 (Coachella rock) 2022 image

Nuno Cera

COSMIC DEBRIS #6 (Coachella rock) 2022
School: Edition 3 of 3 +1AP
Dimension: 101 x 134 x 4cm
Medium: Inkjet print on Hahnemühle papel mounted on Diasec
Nominated by: Margarida Saraiva

In COSMIC DEBRIS #6 (Coachella rock) 2022, Cera questions our reality and unconscious. By creating dreamlike scenes, the work plays with encounters between a suspended obscure object and a landscape, pairing strangers in time and space: two moments converged into a single event. Inspired by René Magritte’s ‘Le Château des Pyrénées’ (1959), the work explores photography in a post-Instagram and AI-driven world. Essentially, Cera aims to break free from traditional notions of what photography is and can be, by exploring new techniques and approaches.

Notable exhibitions include Janela Infinita (Infinite Window), Galeria Miguel Nabinho, Lisbon (2022); Luzes Distantes (Distant Lights), MAAT, Arquitectura e Tecnologia, Lisbon (2022); As Quedas (The Falls), Convento de São Francisco, Coimbra (2022); Symphony of the Unknown II, Escola das Artes, Porto (2021); and Histórias de uma Coleção, Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian, Lisbon (2023). Nuno Cera has also been the recipient of various residencies around the world.

25 / 30

Nuno Sousa Vieira

Family window & family Sculpture  image

Nuno Sousa Vieira

Family window & family Sculpture
Dimension: 125 x 50 x 55cm
Medium: Sculpture
Nominated by: Deborah Harris

Family window & family Sculpture is created from iron window frames taken from the artist’s former workshop at a dismantled plastics factory called SIMALA. These “windows” were manipulated in order to build a progression of openings that allow, on the one hand, the recognition of the initial object and, on the other, an awareness of the transforming capacity starting from a pre-existence.

Notable exhibitions include Inhabitants ou imitar o andar, CAI Galeria 3+1, Lisbon (2023); Pelo que não se vê, CAI Galeria do Instituto Politécnico de Tomar, Tomar (2023); Amanhã é muito tempo, integrada no Ciclo Desenho como pensamento, Biblioteca Municipal Manuel Alegra, Águeda (2023); Um entre nós, Galeria Raquel Arnaud, São Paulo (2022); Tenho a vista cansada, Galeria Mul.ti.plo, Rio de Janeiro (2022). He was shortlisted for The 2022 Sovereign Portuguese Art Prize.

26 / 30

Pauline Guerrier

Plexus Solaire II  image

Pauline Guerrier

Plexus Solaire II
Dimension: 150 x 90cm
Medium: Cotton, wool, velvet, alpaca and glass pearl on jute canvas
Nominated by: Valérie Marendaz

Plexus Solaire II invites the viewer to identify, mirror, and soothe themselves. The work presents visible forms of healing, a term often associated with practices that involve natural remedies, rituals, or other therapies, and that fall outside conventional sciences. Whether it be a heart-shrinking or heart-stabbing sensation, pain in the solar plexus can be the expression of buried emotions that manifest themselves through somatisation. The links between these terminologies are weaved in a plastic vocabulary that oscillates between figurative elements and abstract composition, to reveal a hybridization of emotions in vivid and symbolic colours.

Notable exhibitions include Je est un autre, Château La Coste, Le Puy-Sainte-Réparade (2023); Cosmogonie, Cobra Museum, Amsterdam (2023); Through the eyes of my Ancestors, ARCO Madrid, Galeria Foco, Madrid (2022); and Corde Vocali, Rx Gallery, Paris (2020). She has participated in a residency at Zinsou Foundation, Ouidah (2018).

27 / 30

Pedro Gramaxo

Graça I  image

Pedro Gramaxo

Graça I
School: Edition 1 of 5 + 1 AP
Dimension: 152 x 102 x 5cm
Medium: Inkjet print with pigmented ink on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Baryta 315 gm paper
Nominated by: Howard Bilton

Graças I, II, III were permanent public artworks developed for ESPORO Projecto Cultural, a free access, artistic project aiming to develop the cultural scene of Portugal: in both its natural and social contexts. Referencing the importance of connection with nature and its bounty, Graças I materialized following the artists’ exploration of the ‘Three Graces’. In the piece, Gramaxo harks back to the relationship between the series “Equivalents” by Carl André and John Constable’s cloud paintings between 1822 – 1823. Similarly, the artistic object or monument is decontextualized in a natural-artificial contrast, leading the viewer to a state of altered perception.

Gramaxo has participated in public art projects, including Graças I, II, III, ESPORO Cultura, Figueiró, Ansião and Proença a Nova (2022); and Dimensions #6, Cleve Carney Museum of Art and College of Dupage Chicago, Illinois (2023). Notable exhibitions include Contrivance# 4, Paviljoen een hat Water, Rotterdam (2022) and Beyond Architecture, Casa da Arquitectura Matosinhos (2023).

28 / 30

Teresa Esgaio

Matter image

Teresa Esgaio

Matter
Dimension: 120 x 27 cm
Medium: Charcoal, graphite and soft pastel on paper
Nominated by: Howard Bilton

Drawing takes on a central role in the artist’s work and it is through it that she feels and thinks. More than the materialization of an idea, drawing is the way in which Esgaio finds answers to the questions weighing on her mind. Crafted with graphite, charcoal and black soft pastel, her work has a figurative language that aims to approach abstract concepts such as the passage of time, the human condition, memory, and identity. Matter is a set of drawings that presents itself as an awareness of our place, of our connection to the ground, placing the weight, density of masses and the space they occupy as unavoidable constants in Man’s relationship with reality.

Notable exhibitions include Point Zero, Estação Elevatória a Vapor dos Barbadinhos, Museu da Agua, Lisbon (2023); 180 days, Estação Elevatória a Vapor dos Barbadinhos, Museu da Água, Lisbon (2022); O mar não é redondo, Sala dos Barcos, Cordoaria Nacional, Lisbon (2021); and Contemporâneos Extemporâneos, Galeria Fernando Santos, Porto (2021). She was shortlisted for The 2022 Sovereign Portuguese Art Prize.

29 / 30

Vasco Araújo

“Out of the past” #6  image

Vasco Araújo

“Out of the past” #6
Dimension: 123 x 85 x 10 cm
Medium: Drawings; fabric, painted cardboard, frame, B/W photograph
Nominated by: Howard Bilton

Vasco Araújo uses a diverse range of media to create a unique artistic language. Through deconstruction and reconstruction of behavioural codes, Araújo reflects on the relationship between the subject and the world. Araújo uses all the art forms at his disposal to reconsider social norms: performance of the body, the artists’ own voice (having practiced lyrical chant), gestures, and language. “Out of the past” #6 is about intimacy, memory, love and domestic relationships. It is inspired by a line from Adília Lopes’ poem, ‘Out of the past’ (1999).

Araújo’s work has been widely exhibited, including in Under the Influence of Psyche, The Power Plant, Toronto (2014); Debret, Pinacoteca do Estado de S. Paulo, São Paulo (2013); Em Vivo Contacto, 28º Bienal de S. Paulo, São Paulo (2008); Experience of Art, La Biennale di Venezia, 51st International Exhibition of Art, Venice (2005); and Dialectics of Hope, 1st Moscow Biennial of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2005). He was shortlisted for The 2022 Sovereign Portuguese Art Prize.

30 / 30

Vera Mota

Membrana image

Vera Mota

Membrana
Dimension: 61 x 43cm (Frame: 71 x 53cm)
Medium: Oil on paper
Nominated by: Barbara Piwowarska

Mota’s work revolves around the politics of the body, exploring and reflecting upon it as a constructive methodology and a medium for conceptualisation. Membrane forms part of a group of work that evokes imagery of the human body. While this drawing does not intend to represent a particular body part, the result of the artist’s repeated gesture nevertheless resembles a spine. Rendered in oil paint, the gesture’s imprints are continued by the absorption of the oil by the paper, long after the hand has stopped working.

Mota’s work has been presented at SEM CORPO/ DISEMBODIED, Serralves Contemporary Art Museum, Porto (2022); Phantom Sensation, Sismógrafo, Porto (2023); HAZE, Appleton Associação Cultural, Lisbon (2023); and Esfíngico Frontal, Gallery Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo (2023).

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Thanks for voting!

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Key Dates

Nomination Deadline

— 25 March 2023

Entry Deadline

1 May — 9 June 2023

Shortlist Announcement

— October 2023

Finalists Exhibition

28 November — 16 December 2023

Winner Announcement

— 28 November 2023

2023 Judges

David Elliott image
David Elliott
Writer, Curator and Museum Director
David Elliott image

David Elliott

Writer, Curator and Museum Director

David Elliott is a cultural and art historian, writer, curator and museum director primarily concerned with modern and contemporary art. Elliott was Director of the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford, England from 1976-96, Director of Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden from 1996-2001, the founding Director of the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, Japan from 2001-06, the first Director of Istanbul Modern, Turkey in 2007 and from 2016-2019, Vice-Director and Senior Curator of the Redtory Museum of Contemporary Art in Guangzhou. From 1998-2004, he was President of CIMAM (the International Committee of ICOM for Museums and Collections of Modern Art) and in 2008, the Rudolf Arnheim Guest Professor of Art History at Humboldt University, Berlin; from 2012 to 2017 he was a guest professor in curatorship at the Chinese University, Hong Kong. Since 2010. He has been the Artistic Director of biennales of contemporary art in Sydney, Kiev, Moscow and Belgrade and is currently working freelance as a writer and curator.

João Paulo Queiroz image
João Paulo Queiroz
President of the Board of the Sociedade Nacional de Belas Arte
João Paulo Queiroz image

João Paulo Queiroz

President of the Board of the Sociedade Nacional de Belas Arte

João Paulo Queiroz holds a PhD in Fine Arts from the University of Lisbon, an MA in Communications from the University Institute of Lisbon, and a BA in Painting from the Escola Superior de Belas-Artes de Lisboa. He is a Professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Lisbon, in the PhD courses in Art Education of the University of Porto, and PhD in Arts of the University of Seville, Spain. Queiroz acted as coordinator for the International Congress CSO annually from 2010 to 2022 and of the academic journals Studio, Gama, and Croma. From 2012 to 2022, he coordinated the Congress Raw Material, Practices of Visual Arts in Basic and Secondary Education annually. He currently serves as President of the Board of Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes (SNBA, National Society of Fine Arts). He has held several solo exhibitions and was awarded the Gustavo Cordeiro Ramos Painting Prize by the National Academy of Fine Arts in 2004.

Jorge Queiroz image
Jorge Queiroz
Artist, Winner of The 2022 Sovereign Portuguese Art Prize
Jorge Queiroz image

Jorge Queiroz

Artist, Winner of The 2022 Sovereign Portuguese Art Prize

Jorge Queiroz (b. 1966, Portugal) holds a MA in Fine Arts from School of Visual Arts, USA (1999) and has also completed both an Advanced Course and Complete Studies Plan at ArCo, Portugal (1993, 1991). Winner of The 2022 Sovereign Portuguese Art Prize for his work Duende, Queiroz joins the judging panel for the first time. Using both drawing and painting in his practice, Queiroz creates a dialogue between his medium through which they both contaminate and influence each other. Queiroz is an accomplished artist having exhibited at the Venice Biennale (2003), the São Paulo Biennale (2004), the 4th Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art (2006), and the Rennes Biennial (2016). He has exhibited at many notable institutions, including Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; MUDAM, Luxembourg; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian Lisbon; Serralves Museum, Porto; FRAC Île-de-France Le Plateau, Paris; Walhof Museum, Bielefeld; Carmona e Costa Foundation, Lisbon; Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam; FRAC Haute-Normandie, Sotteville-lès-Rouen, France; Lisbon Museum and Zé dos Bois Gallery, Lisbon.

Maura Marvão image
Maura Marvão
Head of Phillips in Portugal and Spain
Maura Marvão image

Maura Marvão

Head of Phillips in Portugal and Spain

Marvão has a Law degree from Universidade Católica Portuguesa and a Masters in Arts Administration from New York University. She worked at the United Nations and at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York and is the representative in Portugal and Spain of Phillips Auction House. Marvão coordinates a postgraduate course in Markets and Art Collections at Escola das Artes – UCP, is a member of the Advisory Board of Escola das Artes – Universidade Católica Portuguesa, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Youth Foundation with responsibility for culture and founder of the Portuguese Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington.

Philippe Vergne image
Philippe Vergne
Director of Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto
Philippe Vergne image

Philippe Vergne

Director of Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto

Philippe Vergne has been serving as director of Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto, since April 2019. He was director of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) from 2014 to 2018. Prior to his appointment at MOCA, Vergne served for five years as director of the Dia Art Foundation, New York. Before his tenure at the Dia Foundation, Vergne was Deputy Director and Chief Curator at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. From 1994 to 1997, Vergne was Director of the MAC, Musée d’Art Contemporain de Marseille, France.

Tim Marlow image
Tim Marlow
Chief Executive and Director, Design Museum
Tim Marlow image

Tim Marlow

Chief Executive and Director, Design Museum

Tim Marlow is Chief Executive and Director of the Design Museum in London.

Formerly Artistic Director of the Royal Academy of Arts and Director of Exhibitions at White Cube, Marlow has been involved in the contemporary art world for the past thirty years as a curator, writer and broadcaster.  He has worked with many of the most important and influential artists of our time to deliver wide-ranging and popular programmes and brings a commitment to diverse and engaging exhibitions to his new role showcasing the transformational capability of design.

Marlow sits on the Board of Trustees for the Imperial War Museum, Art on the Underground Advisory Board and Cultureshock Media. Marlow was awarded an OBE in 2019.

Vicente Todolí image
Vicente Todolí
Artistic director of Hangar Bicocc
Vicente Todolí image

Vicente Todolí

Artistic director of Hangar Bicocc

Vicente Todolí was appointed artistic director of Hangar Bicocca (Pirelli Foundation) in May 2012 where he is responsible for the program. Vicente Todolí career in the visual arts spans more than 30 years and includes positions as Chief Curator (1986-88) and then artistic director of the IVAM (Valencian Institute of Modern Art, 1988-1996), before joining the Museum of Contemporary Art Serralves as its founding director in 1996 until 2002. In 2002 he was appointed Director of the Tate Modern by the Trustees of the Tate, where he joined full-time in March 2003 and left in June 2010.

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Limited Edition Print

 

Duende by Jorge Queiroz

Purchase a limited edition print of 2022 Grand Prize Winning artwork, ‘Duende’ by Jorge Queiroz. 100% of the proceeds will be donated to Associação SAF.

 

Medium: Inkjet Print, Archival Fine Art Paper (Hahnemühle)

Editions: 33 + 2AP

Price: €3,800

Email art@sovereignartfoundation.com to enquire.

2023 Nominators

Antonia Gaeta
Armando Cabral
Barbara Piwowarska
Bernardo Pinto de Almeida
Bruno Leitão
Catarina Rosendo
Cristina Sanchez-Kozyreva
Deborah Harris
Emma Lochery
Frederico Duarte
Helena Mendes Pereira
Howard Bilton
Hugo A. Guerreiro
Inês Valle
Jane Chesworth
Karen Larkins
Margarida Saraiva
Marie-Françoise Rouy
Pedro Gadanho
Rute Ventura
Sandra Mendonça Pires
Tiago Feijoo
Valérie Marendaz
Vanessa Arelle
Zé Ortigão

Sponsors and Supporters

SAAP2023
Organiser

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Prize Winners and Previous Finalists

2022

Prize Winners and Previous Finalists arrow
Grand Prize Winner
Jorge Queiroz
Jorge Queiroz art
Public Vote Prize Winner
Manuela Pimentel
Manuela Pimentel  art