NEFERTITI PORTRAIT 02 
Description
ABOUT THE ARTWORK
The Gil Vicente triptych makes reference to the figures in the short stories, apologies and fables of Gil Vicente, considered the father of Portuguese theater. The Vincentian work is seen as a reflection of changing times and the passage from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, taking stock of a time where hierarchies and social order were governed by inflexible rules, to a new society where the established order begins to be subverted by questioning it. In this triptych, António Azenha captures the spirit of Gil Vincent’s fantastic written universe, bringing it to a plastic dimension with a colorful visuality, resulting in a fantastic grotesque with a great pictorial impact. An aesthetic experience that takes us back to the imagination of childhood.
“This artwork embodies the dense universe of children’s dreams, through figures that enthrones these children’s dreams in any spectator. They dignify playing and children in what is the shareable dimension of art.”
António Azenha was born in Angola, in 1964, but grew up between Figueira da Foz and Coimbra. With a degree in Painting and a Master’s Degree in Aesthetic Communication, he began exhibiting in the 1980s, participating in various festivals and exhibitions with works of drawing, painting, happening, performance, video and sculpture. In 2009/10, created the work entitled “O meu peão, deles e nosso”, beginning a work marked by children’s imagination and collective generational iconography, which culminated in the exhibition “Toys Replay”. In 2016/17 starts the “Yellow Bricks” exhibition at the Municipal House of Culture of Coimbra, whose basic concept is the reuse and redesign of toys on a larger scale. More recently, he presents the exhibition “Interact Buddha Party”, an artistic installation based on ancient Chinese stories and legends. Between 2019 and 2020 he presents the individual and collective exhibitions “Labirint(eus)” at 22 SCUC, “Oceanfalls” at the Water Museum and at the Science Museum of the University of Coimbra, “My feminine side” at the Dionísio Pinheiro Foundation and “Perfeita Libação-Art transforming” at the Anadia Wine Museum.
