Juliao Sarmento

Born in Lisbon, Portugal. Worked in Estoril, Portugal. One of the most important artists of his generation, Sarmento exhibited extensively since the 1970s. Julião Sarmento drew upon themes of memory, sexuality, transgression, morality, and duality. He worked across different mediums (painting, collage, drawing, sculpture, performance, and film) to deploy a concise vocabulary of images. Sarmento studied Painting and Architecture at Escola Superior de Belas Artes in Lisbon where he received his MA in 1974. The richness and complexity of Sarmento’s work lies in its system of free-floating signifiers which migrate between works and across the boundaries of medium. The use or recurring motifs such as hand gestures, parts of bodies and architectural floor plans generate a free-play of unsettling associations that refuse to settleinto meaning.