Rui Tavares

Rui Tavares was born in Figueira da Foz in 1974. He lives and works in Lisbon. He graduated in Fine Arts, specialising in Painting, from the Faculdade de Belas-Artes da Universidade do Porto. Since 2010 he has taught at the Centro de Formação Artística Nextart in Lisbon.

His painting unfolds in the field of abstraction, articulating planes, textures and colour with references to walls, fragments and mechanical forms. In a text devoted to his work, Rocha de Sousa highlighted the relationship between the solidity of his studio craft and the freedom of his pictorial construction, marked by a dialogue between ordered structures and elements of greater expressive tension.

His solo exhibitions include "Desígnios de um Estratega" at the Museu de Ovar in 2005 and "Branco: Da Verticalidade das Coisas" at the Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes in Lisbon in 2018. At Galeria São Mamede he presented "Lugares: Proposições Para um Estudo em Branco" in 2015, "Random Principles of the White and Its Applications", in Porto and Lisbon, in 2017 and 2018, and "Ensaio Para uma Edificação do Vazio", in both cities, in 2020.

He has also developed collaborative projects with other artists, among them "1+1" and "Wall Games: One2one", with Susana Chasse. He took part in the 1st Gaia Biennial in 2015, the 1st Almada Drawing Biennial in 2016 and the 20th Cerveira International Art Biennial in 2018. His career also includes participation in Art Madrid, JustLX and the Lisbon Art & Antiques Fair.

He received first prizes at the Abel Manta and D. Fernando II painting awards, both in 2008, and was distinguished in painting competitions in Vélez-Málaga, Torremolinos and Martos, in Spain, between 2011 and 2012. In Portugal he won first prize in the Concurso de Artes Plásticas of the Fundação INATEL in 2013 and the Prémio de Pintura Elena Muriel in 2014. In 2016 he received first prizes at the XIV Exposição de Artes Plásticas of the Academia de Marinha, at ARTIS XIV in Seia and at Mertolarte.

His work is held in public collections, notably those of MU.SA, Museu das Artes de Sintra, the Museu de Ovar, the Associação Cultural Museu Cavaquinho and the Biblioteca Municipal de Santa Maria da Feira. He is also represented in the collections of the municipalities of Gouveia, Ansião and Oliveira de Azeméis, in Portugal, and of Álora, Martos, Torremolinos and Vélez-Málaga, in Spain.