Art Research Communication

Susana Mendes Silva at Threshold artspace

Susana Mendes Silva

The first solo show in the UK by this internationally acclaimed Portuguese artist. The second in a five-part ten month series of new commissions, exhibitions and events Portuguese Waves celebrating the vibrant Portuguese contemporary art culture.
Curated by Iliyana Nedkova and Filipa Oliveira
14 January – 13 February 2010
Open Monday to Saturday, 10am – 6pm or late on performance evenings. Admission always free
Threshold artspace , Perth Concert Hall, Mill Street, Perth PH1 5HZ, Scotland

‘The restless, ingenious Susana Mendes Silva has worked across many media, settling on none. She has made disturbing fused objects (a golden tampon in the shape of a bullet, a bar of soap implanted with a razorblade); she has done a witty and anxious private performance-on-demand (“Artphone: +351 91 7218012: Don’t be afraid to ask anything you always wanted to know about contemporary art,” she said on a flyer, and I assume the offer still stands); and she has taken disembodied photographs of her feet, as if both of these body parts somehow have minds and lives of their own. These images are characteristically cute and also rather lonely: the body is a delightful and perplexing encumbrance, a whole other country that never appears whole.’ - James Westcott

A versatile artist, Susana Mendes Silva, moves with ease and expertise through different subject areas often responding to the spaces she is exhibiting in, as well as to the people associated with these places. For her solo exhibition at Threshold artspace – her first in the UK – Mendes Silva presents five works from the last six years in which language, voiceover and text is central. There are works that literally speak to us direct, and others that entangle us in the intricacies of writing both as drawing and video making. At first sight these works might transpire as formally minimalist, but after some contemplation they become profoundly disconcerting and unsettling.

All new commissions and acquisitions are showing at the different ‘project rooms’ of the artspace including the Welcome, Wave, Stage and Flush areas, as well as the artspace dedicated YouTube Channel.

Susana Mendes Silva (born Lisbon, 1972, lives and works in London and Lisbon) has created a varied body of work since the mid-1990s, making use of photography, video, installation, drawing, and performance. She has worked from a specifically female consciousness and sensibility, building a style that is fragmented and antilinear, one that exudes poetic irony and finesse, balancing itself on the fine line of indifference and invisibility, intimacy and aggression. She studied Sculpture in FBAUL (Lisbon, PT), and is currently a MPhil/PhD candidate in Fine Art (Studio Based Research) at Goldsmiths College, London. Mendes Silva is a Research Assistant at the University of Évora since 1999. Her latest solo and group shows include X at Marz Galeria, Lisbon; Beyond Time at National Museum Soares dos Reis, Porto and One Hundred Drawings at Viarco Express, Museum of the Presidency of the Republic, Lisbon. Her exhibition at Threshold artspace, Perth is her first solo presentation in the UK.
www.susanamendessilva.com

Supported by the Calouste Gulbenkain Foundation, Instituto Camões Portugal of Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Portuguese Arts Council Acordo Tripartido Fund