Manuel Tainha »PATHWAYS«

Pathways, 2021

Composed of patches of dyed or bleached cloth, the gestural paintings by Manuel Tainha seem to follow a primary, natural and organic impulse. His embroideries on cloth evoke the notion of them being preserved traces, as if left by some magical dance that followed a secret choreography.

The use of found objects from different contexts that are stripped of their original function, altered and placed in a new context may betray the fact that, besides receiving his artistic education at Lisbon's Faculdade de Belas Artes, Manuel Tainha studied in the class of Anselm Reyle. Beyond their impulsive and mnemonic appeal, Manuel Tainha's works speak of preserved craft, as he draws on locally sourced fabrics and adopts vernacular bleaching and dyeing techniques only to be found in Lisbon's traditional laundry shops.

Manuel Tainha

Manuel Tainha (*Lisbon) studied at Faculty of Fine Arts of University of Lisbon and at the class of Anselm Reyle at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts (HFBK). His work explores composition through the alternance of processes, may it be addition and subtraction, or bidimentional and objectual. The cultural value of materials, limitation, violence in creation and the domestic condition are constants in his working process.

His work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions, among others at Last Resort, Copenhagen (Household poems, 2019), at The Switch Gallery, Lisbon (A mesa, o burro e o cacete, 2018), at Pulau, Lisbon (I will take the risk, 2019) alongside Tomáz Hipólito. Manuel Tainha lives and works in Lisbon.

Read our studio story with Manuel Tainha.

Photos: Simon Veres