Born in Lisbon, Portugal in 1977, Rui Miguel Leitão Ferreira is a contemporary artist. He is most frequently exhibited in Portugal, but also had exhibitions in Austria, United Kingdom and elsewhere. The notable shows include Constellations: a choreography of minimal gestures at Berardo Collection Museum in Lisbon (2019), Neither Valley nor Mountain at Galeria 111 in Lisbon (2020), and In the Kingdom of Clouds: Artists and the Invention of Sintra, Sintra Museum of the Arts in Sintra (2021).
The painting of Rui Miguel Leitão Ferreira consists of a delicate balance between what is stated and what happens. With foundations that are simultaneously both profoundly physical as well as spiritual, his work is a development of the intersection of different forms, rhythms, and ways of doing. Medium, material and action come together in a dialogue which is both thoughtful and intuitive, focussing on the relationship between the act of making marks on the canvas, the outcome of those marks, and what we make of what appears. With its criss-cross of overlapping layers, the dialogue shows us the desire of the artist to make a mark - applying the paint directly to the canvas, accepting the unknown result - when he covers, stamps, strips and lays bare the various layers of which the painting consists.
Highly physical in both structure and image, the works of Rui Ferreira emanate a density which breathe life. A density that comes from careful manipulation of his choice of materials, with recognition of their thickness, elasticity, opacity, and chemical reaction, as well as in his observation of the image and detailed understanding of what it is. To speak of the density of the painting and its inherent complexity leads us to notice the disarming simplicity of the production process, which embraces the accidental, the unforeseen and the uncontrollable. His work can be seen as a set of forces in balance, of desire and acceptance, of material and image, the complex and the simple.
Excerpts from “Neither Valley Nor Mountain” by Sérgio Fazenda Rodrigues.