João Castro Silva, I Know it all, 2003.  Pine wood sculptures

João Castro Silva sculpture

Graduated in Sculpture by the Fine Arts Faculty of the University of Lisbon, João Castro Silva had a scholarship from the Gulbenkian Foundation between 1991 and 1992. Works as a teacher in the course of Sculpture at the Fine Arts Faculty of the University of Lisbon, since 1995 and he has participated in many individual exhibitions. From 1990 to 2005 he has won awards and recognition.

João Castro Silva, Hand, 2005. Pine wood sculpture

Working mainly in stone, wood and iron, his work is an approach to the human figure in a way at the same time very personal and very universal. Formally he is concerned with the representation of human figure, the conscience of self as the way to the conscience of otherness, of the world.

João Castro Silva, Connections, 2006. Pine wood sculptures

His works are a performance of living men, or, in other words, a performance of life through the senses of men, which includes emotions and beliefs and the nearness of death. It is a very religious kind of work in the sense that there is an immanence of being, a certain stated attitude, that goes beyond the roughness of the forms and the materials. Forms that stand in the limits of life, challenging balances and exposing its own frailties, and thus inducing reaction, either interior as relational, on the observers.

João Castro Silva, Drift, 2009. Pine wood sculpture

In his oeuvre, just as in life, death is always a foreseen presence, that stands in contradiction with the materials he chooses – primary, final materials – and with the dimensions he prefers – exaggerated figures, over-sized members or parts – producing an unavoidable strength, the uniqueness of his expression.

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