O Atelier: Bela Silva

We are pleased to announce the exhibition "O Atelier", Bela Silva's first solo exhibition at the gallery. The opening will take place next Saturday 14 and Sunday 15 November, between 9pm -12.30pm, respecting the measures of the DGS regarding the prevention and control of  Covid-19 pandemic.
 
This exhibition follows the artist's wish to renew her studio in Lisbon. This would allow her to share her time between Lisbon and Brussels, the city that has served as her home for the last 8 years. She was looking for a place where she could store all the pieces and drawings that she kept throughout the years, during this period. From this necessity came the idea to recreate the atmosphere of the studio at the gallery allowing the public of Lisbon a privileged and unique access to the pieces of her Studio.
 
The exhibition presents the various aspects of Bela Silva's work, together with the emblematic ceramic pieces, a rare set of large and small format drawings created between 1995 and 2020. A thread connects the most baroque pieces to the most utilitarian ones and creates a movement full of poetry characteristic of Bela Silva's work, a tireless observer of the world.
 
Bela Silva is an artist of the world and her personal and artistic career reflects that. Her nomadic character leads her to move out of Lisbon in the 1990's, to continue her education at the University of Norwich, in England.  
 
Bela Silva's curious and energetic personality is favorable to meet and discover new places. This is how a few years later, the artist leaves for the United States. Initially, she settled in Chicago where she studied at the prestigious Art Institute, and a few years later in New York, where she lived and worked as an illustrator for the New York Times. Her American experience was determinant in her education and in this beginning of her career. 
 
Bela Silva's work is represented in several international collections, both private and institutional. Exhibitions at Ann Nathan Gallery, Rhona Hoffman Gallery, both in Chicago, stand out. In Portugal, in the Tile Museum of Lisbon, Museum Anastácio Gonçalves in Lisbon, Palácio da Ajuda and Foundation Ricardo Espírito Santo. Important exhibitions also took place in China and Japan. Bela Silva participated in collective exhibitions of ceramics in Brazil, Spain and France.  She has held ceramic workshops in Japan and Morocco, having attended art residencies in Kohler, Wisconsin, USA, and at Fábrica Bordalo Pinheiro, Caldas da Rainha and Fábrica Viúva Lamego, in Sintra.
 
He created several public art works, namely Azulejos Bela Silva has made several large ceramic panel projects for several private collectors in Lisbon, Paris and Brussels. Longstanding partnerships with prestigious designers and architects she admires has allowed the artist to realize important large scale projects in ceramics. 
 
Bela Silva has also collaborated with several prestigious luxury brands in recent years. We highlight the invitation extended to her in 2018 by Hermès House to conceive one of his mythical Carré de Soie, thus becoming the first Portuguese to collaborate with this important French institution. More recently, in 2020, the collaboration with the French brand Monoprix found a living success.