Sobral Centeno (b. 1948, Porto, Portugal) presents a series of paintings that continues his legacy of a body of work created in the city of Porto, for the world.
The confrontation with these explosive gestures on canvas, at first impact, is almost overwhelming. One primary interpretation might be one of disorganisation, chaos and chance. However, subtly, hierarchy is present. The expressivity of colour and of the spontaneous gesture are ruled by layers – a reflection of the artist’s search for the understanding of reality.
Within the abstractive, the figurative is also found. Architectonical shapes, guiding signs, corporeal figures, crosses and deconstructed writing; all can be discovered in between the layers of the oils and the acrylics. Rituals, symbolic objects and ideologies from different civilisations collide in front of the spectator. Sobral Centeno reveals us, in this way, his vision of the world, constantly transformed by the political and cultural shifts he lives through and observes. This body of work seems looks like an alchemy of the various previous phases and series of his painting, allowing us to accompany the artist through a new reading of his conscious.
He graduated in Fine Arts (FBAUP), received a scholarship from Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian (1983-1985) and taught at Instituto Politécnico do Porto (1987-2006). His work can be found in many national and international collections, among the following: Centro de Arte Moderna da Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian (Portugal); Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves (Portugal); Coleção de Arte moderna e Contemporânea – Norlinda e José Lima (Portugal); Kunstmuseum Walter im Glaspalast (Germany); Shoes or No Shoes Musem (Belgium); L’Unesco La Galerie d’Art (France); Instituto de Arte Contemporânea (Brazil); Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Pernambuco (Brazil).