Gil Maia

Born in Maia in 1974, he holds a degree in Visual Arts, Painting, from the Faculdade de Belas Artes da Universidade do Porto. Since the late 1990s he has pursued a consistent career in Portuguese contemporary painting, building an artistic practice centred on the relationships between architecture, space, memory and visual construction.

His work is characterised by a sustained investigation into processes of construction and deconstruction of the image, creating compositions in which architectural structures, objects, interior landscapes and imagined spaces coexist in unstable equilibrium. Through displacements, fragmentations and formal reorganisations, he builds ambiguous pictorial territories that summon memory, perception and spatial experience all at once.

Over the course of his career he has presented numerous solo and group exhibitions in Portugal and abroad, notably projects such as Constructiones in Palatio, Constructiones in Ecclesia, [De]Constructions, Quase Lugar and Lugares Impolutos, series that attest to a persistent investigation into place, structure and transformation. He has exhibited regularly in galleries and institutions such as Galeria São Mamede, Galeria Sete, Galeria Pedro Serrenho and the Museu da Electricidade, and at international fairs such as Art Madrid, Arte Lisboa and contemporary art fairs in Shanghai and Bolzano.

He has received various prizes over the course of his career, among them the Grande Prémio de Pintura D. Fernando II (2010), the Grande Prémio da Bienal de Coruche (2009), first prize at the Prémio Abel Manta (2013) and first prize in the Prémio Jovem Artes Plásticas of the CAE da Figueira da Foz (2009). His work forms part of Portuguese and international public and private collections, including cultural institutions, corporate collections and private collectors.