joseph scissorhands: Nuno Gil: Underwater Stories

Sunday, 9 March 2025

Nuno Gil: Underwater Stories

Nuno Gil - Still Life, 2024

“Water fills the empty spaces between things, connecting everything and making it all one.” - Nuno Gil.

I managed to find this fun exhibition of lively collaged paintings by Portuguese artist Nuno Gil in Fitzrovia. I missed fellow collagist Gil's last exhibition at Rosenfeld through my own bad timing and was determined to catch this one in good time to see the works face to face rather than online. The artworks are large and colourful. They are alive with the colours and heat of the artist's native Portugal. The various elements of the artworks appear to leap off the canvas. The theme of the works for this exhibition is loosely related to water which to the artist symbolises connections and fluidity. On the evidence of it though, foliage and plant life also appears to be a major preoccupation in Gil's inspiration. Pieces such as The Invisible Man are full of lush, hanging tropical foliage. Comparisons with the later papercuts of Matisse (here), inevitably spring to mind because of the saturated colour palette and sculptural, graphic, cut-out shapes. A close inspection of the artworks sees Gil's adoption of the pressed out circle as a decorative motif across the surfaces of the canvases. Pressed out circles are an element I began to use myself in the work I created during the pandemic, and I will be presenting some newer pieces using pressed circles on these pages soon. Gil takes his collage a step further than Matisse though, with the addition of some lovely brushed textures derived from the more painterly aspect of his practice, as well as the inclusion of unusual materials like shapes cut from embossed leather and wood. You can see these in some of the close-up pictures taken below. The highly stylised plant forms of Gil's made for a perfect exhibition to catch after experiencing the natural plant forms and landscape at Kew Gardens. The saturated colours in these canvases are a perfect reflection of the early March sunshine we have been experiencing and enjoying of late in London. Come on spring!