Tomás Castro Neves graduated in Architecture but quickly realized that drawing was his form of expression. Last May 2024, he presented “Ideia de Homem” at Pura Cal, where he explores the man as an object and context, nature and spirit, volume and space!
But who is Tomás Castro Neves? We had a conversation with him...
- With an architectural background, how has this artistic journey been like? And what do you consider to be the key moments so far?
I have always drawn and painted, I was very curious about the world of art and the act of creating. Architecture came later, as a safer way of expressing myself artistically and it ended up teaching me many organizational and even aesthetic practices, but what was most automatic for me was drawing. Without a doubt the key moment was when I started sharing my drawings on social media. They began to have an autonomy that they did not have when locked in a notebook (they could risk becoming art). Another key moment was probably leaving my job as an architect to dedicate myself exclusively to my artistic practice. It has been a time of discovery and expansion.
- The Drawing is a clearly distinctive element in your work. Is drawing innate to you? Is it a continuous exploration? What is this process like?
Yes, I can consider that drawing is innate to me, I have always done it, even without being aware of what I was doing. There is a line that unites this "exploration" in drawing. For me, the development of linework and drawing is a kind of self-knowledge. There is a filing down of edges - of graphics, of themes - that makes the hand that draws recognize itself through the linework. Above all, drawing has always been a tool, like writing, that I used easily. From the moment it became a tool for more intimate expression, that is when it gained the quality that I recognize in my practice today.
- Your work has a very graphic expression. Where does it come from?
The fact that I have explored digital drawing, reinforces the idea of graphic expression, but I have always been
attracted to expressions of this kind, even before digital media. The colored cutouts from the end of Matisse's life are one of the sets of pieces that fascinate me the most due to their expressiveness and lightness. They are also fundamental pieces in the construction of a graphic design language because they reconfigure the way we represent certain objects. In a way, they even remind me of cave paintings or hieroglyphics. This simplicity that brings an object closer to its symbolism is something that also attracts me and that I seek.
Architecture is also fundamentally graphic. The plans, sections and details, but also the clarity of representation that is necessary to communicate an architectural idea and that leads to a purification that I love, like a plan by Mies, a drawing by Corbusier or Siza. The idea of full and empty that is transversal to architecture, I also seek in my paintings. In some pieces there is a two-dimensionality that gains depth, an abstract envelope that helps to detail a body through its voids and transparencies.
- Is there a certain classical Greco-Roman artistic vision in the way you see the human body?
Yes, especially in a later phase of classical creation in which bodies gain a lot of dynamism and movement. The archetype of the classical man is something that interests me. It is a contribution to a new humanism, to a reconfiguration of man and masculinity, even of sex. This representation of the body in a natural way is one of my greatest goals.
- Your works often explore the idea of tension. The muscular tension of the body, the tension of movement, sexual tension.
The most satisfying figurative representations have always been those that involve this "tension", from Michelangelo to Paula Rego. This tension gives life to the painting and brings me closer to those figures, as if they gained a story or a time of their own. Perhaps there is some martyrdom in these positions, but that is how they become heroic. My figures have become more contorted, even more tense, because it is a way of expressing themselves. The veracity of the positions or their realism has never been one of my goals and the tension makes the image more magnetic.
- You are also interested in the theme of the representation of objects. You have a few of your favorites? Would you like to talk a little about that?
I am curious about the symbolism of certain objects and how this symbolism can also be transferred to the human figure. Perhaps influenced by architecture, I am fascinated by chairs, benches, structures for us to sit on or that interact with our bodies. I see in them a beautiful metaphor for various symbols such as stability, comfort, security. I find it interesting that a three-legged bench is more stable than a four-legged chair. In this last exhibition, I contrasted a drawing of a chair with another of a male figure forming a bridge, on four hands. This surrealist relationship that connects the human and the object is something that interests me. Furniture ends up being a set of pieces that have a very strong interaction with us and the direct association of emotions with it. If we are the origin of meaning, I find it interesting to look at these objects as more than a function, a metaphor or an idea.
- As you can see in this latest exhibition “Ideia de Homem”, you have also been exploring new techniques and new scales. Is painting now your chosen technique? What paths do you intend to explore?
The phase I am in allows me to be more open to new experiences, to delve deeper into the preparation of each piece. If my drawings have always been a direct connection to my thinking, I have always aimed to expand that space and immerse myself in it. Painting allows me to easily increase the scale of my work and, although I continue to look at my pieces as drawings, the way I relate to them changes completely. Although drawing is the most innate to me, I do not want to close myself off to other media, such as sculpture or video, but they are still ideas on paper and anything goes there.
Find here all Tomás Castro Neves Artwork!