Interviewing Thomas Mendonça | newsletter #21

art2act® | newsletter #21

Thomas Mendonça

INTERVIEW

ABOUT THE ARTIST | ORIGINAL ARTWORKS

Thomas Mendonça (1991, France), is a visual artist graduated at ESAD.Cr, currently living and working in Lisbon.

He participated in the exhibitions "Poríferos Preciosos" at Museu Geológico de Lisboa and Museu Nacional de História Natural e da Ciência, "Género na Arte: Corpo, sexualidade, identidade, resistência" at Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea do Chiado, and "Species Novae" at Galeria FOCO.

Among others, he also curated the exhibitions "PAU DURO CORAÇÃO MOLE"; "O Vírus" and "Sem Receio De Criar O Caos" for the 22nd and 23rd editions of International Queer Film Festival - Queer Lisboa, both at Galeria FOCO. His main interests are spread among sentimental melodramas, post-pop culture and the beauty of iconic singularity in general.

Thomas, let's start with: who are you and what do you do?

"I'm both French and Portuguese, born and raised around Paris, flourished around Lisbon. I'm blond, curious, right-handed, gay, worried about the world, amazed by nature. I'm not what you asked for and I'm ok with that. I mainly do drawing and ceramic. I collect trash and seashells by the sea shore, I do work with it. This last year was a bit different – we all might have noticed - I did start to paint, I wrote a little small tinny book about my first Saturn’s return and everything that brought me next to my thirties. I do random crochet when I'm super bored."

Can you tell us about the process of making your work?

"The fact of working with different medias gives me the opportunity to explore different ways to represent and communicate what I want. In fact, both drawing, ceramic, painting, crochet and collecting brings many points of view. The very first step is to find the best way to proceed. I normally choose ceramic to explore what I find more incredible about fauna, flora and geology. Drawing is specifically chosen to spread any slightest poetry or militancy."

Untitled - Thomas Mendonça

€437.50

Can you tell us more about your work? What inspired you to make these “coral shaped” ceramics?

"It was in the academic context that my ceramic work found its starting point into nature's shapes on a very extended scale. I always felt very attracted to organic manifestations in general, I am interested in natural patterns, and I am amazed every day a little more by the diversity of forms. The work that I have developed over the past few years is the result of this profound enthusiasm around the natural world. Giving a special affection for those who opened the ball of sensuality being the first animal to reproduce sexually five hundred million years ago. Inviting one egg and one sperm to build life - the Porifera - whose anatomy takes me to rhizomatic ramifications make the rhizome concept itself quite relevant to me. I am attracted to ways that convey an idea of flexibility, forms that in a way represent the stable and momentary version of something expanding or transforming - metamorphosis, cocoon, barnacles, hybrid, Pokémon."

What about the drawings? Who are these people that you portrait in many different ways?

"My drawings and paintings portray several inspiring and beautiful people - known or not - usually from photographs. Even without knowing or caring, they are deeply connected to the various states of mind that I go through by being alive."

Was there a pivotal moment when you decided to follow your path as an artist?

"I was around six years old when someone asked me for the first time if I would like to be a painter one day. It was during a field trip to the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, we were copying some exhibited painting. I remember to keep staring at the very yellow face I did draw on a blank page and starting to think about it while renouncing to my veterinary or lawyer careers. Of course, the actual turning point was after my degree. I was desperate to find a job, I have just decided to stop searching for one and start to do what I wanted to."

Retrato do Retrato da Apatia - Thomas Mendonça

€475.00

If you could work within a past art movement, which would it be?

"Prehistoric, Realism, Kitsch and Surrealism."

Clope Magique et Dolce Vita - Thomas Mendonça

€475.00

Which artist of the past would you most like to meet?

"Louise Bourgeois."

Professionally, what’s your goal?

"My goal is to absorb all the beauty my eyes can handle, get big and bigger, learn, share and to have lots of fun."

One of the NGO's you have chosen to help with 7% of your works is "ILGA Portugal Association". How important do you feel their work is in Portugal and how did it inspired you?

"As the mother of all the Portuguese associations who fight for the LGBTI+ rights, ILGA Portugal directly inspired me to stand for what I am and for what I want the world to become."

What do you think about the art2act® project? How do you think it can help the development of your artistic career?

"I think that's a great concept and I believe that solidarity and social bounding is the future of any single career I could have ever dreamed about."

Culotte Arc-en-ciel - Thomas Mendonça

€412.50

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