Margarida Pinheiro

Untitled

Oil on wood panel

35.5 x 27.5cm

About:

Margarida Pinheiro (b. 1998) is a Portuguese artist living and working in London since 2020. After completing a BA in Painting at Belas-Artes University of Lisbon, she enrolled in an MA in Fine Art: Painting at Camberwell College of Art UAL, which she completed with Merit in 2021. During this time, she took part in several group shows - Controverso at ‘Sociedade Nacional de Belas-Artes’ in Lisbon, unmute at Copeland Gallery, and MAFA Graduates Showcase at South London Gallery. Later that year she was one of the artists selected to exhibit at Saatchi Gallery for the London Grads Now 21 group show and became a founding member of the artists’ collective regroup with 28 members overall. 

Since then, Margarida has taken part in several group exhibitions, both in London and in Lisbon. In 2022 she showed work in Flux at Espacio Gallery, Intimacy at Fitzrovia Gallery, All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days at Four Corners Gallery, and in the art fair Cluster Contemporary at the OXO Tower. Later, in 2023, she showed in Shadows We Cast at Koppel Project, and Ego Dialogue at Greatorex Gallery in London, as well as in the Corrente de Ar III Open Call, and Alto Salto at Campo Pequeno Gallery, both in Lisbon.

By using oil painting as a medium, Margarida Pinheiro explores the world through an autobiographical language. She is interested in pushing the boundaries of portraiture as a genre and uses her work as an ongoing process of self-discovery. The idea that “Every still-life is a self-portrait” (Gooding, 2020), is at the foundation of her work

By depicting memories and scenes inspired by moments of her day-to-day life, she tells her story as a student of the human essence and its respective emotional complexity. Her childhood and the History of Art play a significant role in her themes of choice - these are frequently referenced through symbolism in her work, and often associated with her religious upbringing. Pinheiro's work carries a nostalgic and sometimes ethereal aura which comes from her interest in portraiture that goes beyond representing physical resemblance, ‘it is about us as humans - the mystery of what we are’ (Brook, 2021).

She finds inspiration in artists whose focus is, similarly, regarding their own human experience, interpersonal relationships, and consequential outcomes of our modern society. Some of her references encompass artists such as Chloe Wise, Celia Paul, Cindy Sherman, Caroline Walker, René Magritte, and Alexis Ralaivao.

The focus of her current work has been on exploring her romantic relationship with her partner, often representing and romanticizing domestic scenes in which the typical ‘object of desire’ is reversed and seen through the lens of a female artist, therefore inverting the roles from the 'male gaze' to the 'female gaze'. We may find her, and her partner Francisco often portrayed in mundane scenes, or even imagined scenarios, in which the artist invites the observer to peek into the intimate life of the couple and its shared complicity. Here Pinheiro takes charge of a theme that is treated by male artists, consequently, assuming the power position as the storyteller of this modern relationship and reframing the theme of love, desire and seduction.