Drawing Room Lisboa
Whitney MCVeigh| Neha Vedpathak | Vanessa da Silva
Stand 12 | 26 - 30 October 2022
Encounter is pleased to present a booth of internationally acclaimed artists Whitney McVeigh, Neha Vedpathak and Vanessa da Silva at Drawing Room Lisboa, Stand 12. The curatorial selection engages with themes of identity, landscape and memory drawing on diverse bodies of work for which each of these artists has gained wide institutional recognition.
Whitney McVeigh (born 1968) is an American visual artist, best known for her paintings and installation art. She has travelled extensively to carry out her practice and held residencies in Mexico, India, China and South Africa. Her work investigates personal and collective memory and alludes to the layering of time. Recent solo exhibitions include; ‘Temporality, Cardi Projects, Cardi Gallery (2020), What is Worthwhile Doing in this World, Mount Stuart Visual Arts, Scotland (2019), Elegy to Nature, Eykyn Maclean, New York (2018), Language of Memory, Summerhall Arts, Edinburgh (2016), Inventory: Invisible Companion, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge (2015) and presentation of the film ‘Birth’: Origins at the end of life at the Royal Academy, London (2015). Recent group exhibitions include, Fermata, Encounter, London (2021), Photo London, Somerset House, London (2021) with Encounter, What Remains, Encounter, London (2021), Artist Rooms, Encounter, London (2020), ‘Shapes in Clouds’ Encounter, London (2019),Plato in LA: Contemporary Artists’ Visions, Getty Villa, Los Angeles (2018), Not a Single Story, The Wanas Foundation, Sweden and Nirox Foundation, South Africa (2018), Culture Lines: Sans Frontieres, Metamatic-Taf Foundation, Athens (2016), Unlocking the Diary, The Archiving of Nameless Memories, Folkestone Triennial, Kent (2014) and Glass Stress, White Light/White Heat, 55th Venice Biennale, Venice (2013).
Whitney McVeigh was featured in the BBC4 television documentary, Where is Modern Art Now (2009) alongside Sir Anthony Caro, Michael Landy, Grayson Perry and Cornelia Parker. She was nominated for the Sovereign European Art Prize (2008) by Saatchi Gallery director, Rebecca Wilson. Simon Schama’s recent essay on McVeigh’s practice ‘The Happenstance of Illumination’(2018) was included in his book Wordy (Simon & Schuster), published in June 2019. "Her work featured in ‘Imagined Spaces’ edited by Kirsty Gunn & Gail Low with Voyage Out Press & Saraband Books (2020), an anthology that creates a “space” between understanding and the imagination. In Autumn 2022 a new collection of McVeigh’s limited editions will be launched at Renzo Piano Building Workshops’s newly designed building Shard Place (London). McVeigh’s work can be found in public and private collections worldwide.
Neha Vedpathak
‘Part painting, part construction, my works have a sensory, tactile quality, and cast intricate shadows on the wall as they float upon it. There is a spiritual aspect to my slow, repetitive, and disciplined process, similar to meditative chanting, tuned to a slower pace.’
Neha Vedpathak (1982) lives and maintains a studio in Detroit, Michigan. In her widely acclaimed works on Japanese paper Vedpathak employs a ‘plucking’ technique, a rigorous self-invented process to create works that aim to broaden the dialog and understanding of issues related to identity, spirituality, social and gender politics. Vedpathak has been an artist-in-residence at Anderson Ranch Art Center, Fountainhead Residency, Skopelos Foundation for the Arts, Greece, Bharat Bhavan Graphic Studio, India & CAMAC, France. Recent solo exhibitions include; ‘Neha Vedpathak - Time (Constant, Suspended, Collapsed’, Flint Art Museum, Michigan (2021), ‘Surface Rhythms’, Sundaram Tagore Gallery, New York (2020), ‘Into the Woods’, Simone De Sousa Gallery, Detroit (2020), ‘Many Moons, Same Sky’, Simone De Sousa Gallery, Detroit (2019), ‘Of the Land’, N'Namdi Center for Contemporary, Detroit (2018), ‘Bhabha’, The Poetry Foundation, Chicago (2016), ‘The Space Between’, N’Namdi Contemporary, Miami (2013), ‘Neha Vedpathak’, One Prudential Plaza, Chicago (2012). Recent group exhibitions include; ‘Invisible Threads’ Baker Art Museum, Florida (2022), ‘Fermata’ Encounter, London (2022), ‘Emerge’ National Indo American Museum, Lombard (2021), ‘Alterations, Activation, Abstraction’, Sundaram Tagore Gallery, New York (2019), ‘Edition 18’, Simone De Sousa Gallery, Detroit (2018), ‘Art on Paper’, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro (2017), ‘Transformation’ (performance), Arizona State University Museum, Arizona (2016). Vedpathak’s work can be found in important public and private collections internationally including Detroit Institute of Art, Progressive Art Collection, Camac Art Centre, Czech Academy of Sciences, Bharat Bhavan Arts Center, Madhya Pradesh State Art Museum, Anderson Ranch Arts Centre.
Vanessa Da Silva
Vanessa da Silva was born in São Paulo, Brazil (1976), she lives and works in London. Her work includes sculpture, installation and performance focusing on issues of immigration, notions of territory, identity and displacement. Born and raised in Sao Paulo but living in London over a decade, da Silva reflects upon her own lived experiences as a Latin American immigrant in Europe to reconstruct her own consciousness of Brazilian identity and otherness, she is interested in the space between nationalities and the complicated borders where identities and cultures mix and meet, where divergent and conflicting ideas cohabit.
She holds an MA Painting from the Royal College of Art, London (2017), and a BFA in Product Design from FAAP, São Paulo, Brazil (1999). In 2020, she received the Hopper Prize (USA), and in 2019 the Gilbert Bayes Award from the Royal Society of Sculptors (London), in 2017 she was awarded the Almacantar Studio Grant. She participated in the residences FAAP, São Paulo (2020), Pivô Research, São Paulo (2019) and Ox-Bow, USA (2017).
She has exhibited in the UK and internationally with most recent projects at Yorkshire Sculpture Park (2022), 019 Gent, Ghent, Flag commission (2022) and La Casa Encendida, Devenir Isla, Madrid (2022). Upcoming exhibitions include MK Gallery, Milton Keynes, UK (2023). Solo Exhibitions: Muamba Grove, Frieze Sculpture, London (2021), Mamão com Açúcar, Artissima, Turin (2021), The Inner Rhythm of the Collective, Lungley Gallery, London (2021), Vertical Zen, Hospitalfield, Scotland (2019), Muamba Grove, Duarte Sequeira Gallery, Portugal (2019), Stranger than Paradise, StudioRCA Riverlight, London (2017). Selected Group Exhibitions: De Montañas Submarinas el Fuego Hace Islas, Pivô, São Paulo (2022), Sol, curated by Alexandre da Cunha, Marli Matsumoto Gallery, São Paulo (2022), Transient Roots, curated by Huma Kabakci, Sapling Gallery, London (2022), Female Voices of Latin America, Vortic Art, London (2021), Assembly Points, Public Gallery, London (2020), Four Flags, Jaqueline Martins Gallery, São Paulo (2020), Salon Acme, Mexico City (2020), Antifascismo Tropical, curated by Pablo León de la Barra, White Cubicle, London (2019), This Future is Unthinkable, Yet We Are Thinking It, Damien and the Love Guru, Brussels (2019), VIA Arts Prize, Embassy of Brazil, London (2018), Artworks Open curated by Tai Shani and Emma Talbot, Barbican Arts Trust, London (2018), ARCO Lisbon, Opening section curated by João Laia, Portugal (2018), I Am He As You Are She As You Are Me, curated by Kiki Mazzucchelli, House of Egorn, Berlin (2018), Herland, Bosse & Baum, London (2017), With Institutions Like This..., curated by Victor Wang, The Averard Hotel, London (2016).