Isabel Dores

Isabel Dores was born in Porto and lives in Vila do Conde, Portugal. She received her degree in Fine Arts from the University of Porto, and has focused on sculpture works since the early 1990s. Equally at ease carving marble, turning wood, molding and casting in beeswax, pewter, or ice, Isabel has most recently combined multiple pieces to create installations that address the passage of time.

Through body fragments, hearts, navels, heads, and wombs, this artist recounts intimate stories. Isabel Dores selects essential organs to address the body as a whole, exposing it as repository of well-guarded secrets. Through her use of negative space, she affords to reveal little, creating a place of reflection for the viewer, where dreaming can take place.

When confronted with Isabel’s sculptures, one feels a sense of longing, the tension between fragility and dependence, as if the body stood as a barrier protecting the self. Isabel’s works confront us with our own vulnerability. Refine, austere, and extremely seductive, their formal qualities assert their power. Words often reinforce Isabel’s ideas, compelling the audience to connect with her as they read and echo her voice, breaking the isolation inherent to the act of looking.

In the tradition of post-minimalist artists such as Eva Hesse, Janine Antoni, and Rachel Whiteread, Isabel Dores re-affirms the personal as political. She does it with immense subtlety, and an intensely poetic voice, using repetition as a strong conceptual tool, often echoed through beeswax, which in its plasticity allows her to simultaneously represent the absence and the promise of something new.

Isabel Dores has participated in group shows and biennales throughout Portugal since the early 2000s with her most recent solo show taking place in 2020.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2021 If the heart could think it would stop, FBAUP Museum, Oporto;

2020 Act I - Between body and object, ART LAB 24 Contemporary Art, Espinho;

2018 Bared Navel, Palacete dos Viscondes de Balsemão, Porto;

2017 The space in between, Biblioteca Municipal Rocha Peixoto, Póvoa de Varzim;
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SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2022 It’s spring in the palace, Paço dos Condes de Tentúgal, Tentúgal;

2021 Stone by Stone, Mira Forum, Oporto;

2020 Half-opened, Kitchen Gallery, FBAUP, Porto;
Blow, FBAUP Museum, Porto;
Defrosted map, FBAUP, Porto;
A point in the situation, Kitchen Gallery, FBAUP, Porto;

2017 XIX Cerveira International Art Biennial, Vila Nova de Cerveira Castle;
33,3 Visual Arts, Fórum da Maia Centrarte, Maia;

2016 Textile in Art, Alfândega, Porto;

2015 XVIII Cerveira International Art Biennial, Casa da Cultura, Tomiño, Spain;
Full, Biblioteca Municipal Rocha Peixoto, Póvoa de Varzim;
You stopped listening to yourself, Academia de Música de Espinho;

2014 Aduntorium Non Constant, Da Vinci Gallery, Porto;

2013 Aduntorium Non Constant, Camara Ambigua, Matosinhos;

2004 Contemporary Portuguese Silver, Joalharia Ferreira Marques, Lisbon;

2002 Sculpture in Composites, X and XI Biennial of Vila Nova de Cerveira, Valencia;

2000 Stone Sculpture, Eduardo Marques & Rosa, Fátima;

1997 Finalists from FBAUP, Árvore Cooperative, Oporto;
Finalists from FBAUP, Dr. António Cupertino de Miranda Foundation, Oporto;
Finalists from FBAUP, Castle of Sta. Maria da Feira;

1996 II AIP Art Biennial, Europarque, Sta. Maria da Feira;

1991 D'Assumpção e Edgar Allan Poe, Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso de Souza-Cardoso, Amarante.

No information available.