The catalogue of the exhibition Ana Galvão: O Gosto Solitário de Gravar (Ana Galvão: The Solitary Joy of Printing), featuring works produced between 1987 and 2017, has been published for the artist’s exhibition at Galeria Quadrum (November 9, 2017 – January 7, 2018). The exhibition had been curated by Célia Bragança. This publication brings together texts by the following authors: Sara Antónia Matos, Célia Bragança, Cristina Guerra, Cristina Azevedo Tavares, Américo Silva and Manuela Cristóvão.
“Entitled “Ana Galvão – O Gosto Solitário de Gravar” (Ana Galvão – The Solitary Joy of Printing), the exhibition curated by Célia Bragança offers a continuous perspective on the artist’s production of prints over the last 30 years (1987-2017), raising questions not only about the production of this artist in particular but of many artists who have chosen to operate and express themselves through a medium that permits the elaboration of editions and multiples of a same image (or monoprints, as the case may be).”
– Sara Antónia Matos
“Although the title remains an enigma to us, this exhibition is perhaps an opportunity to visually present the graphic work of Ana Galvão, which features various printing techniques and procedures such as woodcuts, lithography and particularly chalcography, creating a paradoxical result which lends the artist’s visual language a unique quality through the use of lines scraped with a burin and the chiaroscuro of luscious aquatints and etchings, among other techniques.”
– Célia Bragança
“With regard to her work, Ana Galvão uses logic and geometric models, exploring the reality beyond scientific fact. Galvão plays with figurative visual elements and humour, such as the ‘ant’, in an ironic exercise which decodes (or not) the tension crested between the different directions and forms in the geometry of her enigmatic of her enigmatic visual compositions.”
– Cristina Guerra
“When observing Ana Galvão’s vast body of work, this humanist vision of the artist’s place in the world stands out, repositioning values to ensure that they do not disappear. We will never know if this vision derives from a vocation drawn onto the map of the stars or from mere intuition. Yet we share with Ana Galvão the feelings which she cultivates through her prints, of the lands which she touches silently like life itself.”
– Cristina Azevedo Tavares
“As I observe Ana Galvão’s printed works, I am struck by the great interest which her printing awakens within me. It is primarily the graphic nature of her work: the density of the black color, the engraved line and the contrasts obtained which demonstrate the artist’s mastery of printing techniques in their essence, and which rhymes with my concept as a graphic artist.”
– Américo Silva
“Her character, assertive and tenacious, encourages her to go further and to produce signature screenprints, combining these with engraving in which the colour gains strength through contrasts and defined shapes.”
– Manuela Cristóvão
