VOYEUR

VOYEUR Virtual solo show at Kolly Gallery, Zurich, Switzerland – May 2021 During this exceptional time when pandemic lockdowns and self-isolation were the norm, the worldwide population was forced to stay at home for long periods of time. This led to a burgeoning interest in the happenings behind the scenes. Through exceptional insights, such as business meetings and social media stories, the virtual public was invited into private spaces and homes, a voyeuristic society was created. Social distancing and self-isolation reinforced spending more time on social networks and the constant and obsessive urge to know other people’s location and actions, at times revealing the life of privacy that exists when no one is watching. Each piece is a voyeuristic insight into a fleeting moment represented through a window or an outside view point. All the pieces create a certain atmosphere of privacy, looking at scenes that are not meant for the public. The shape of the artwork The Secret presents the viewpoint through a key hole. It gives the viewer the true voyeuristic perspective on a private situation. Through the narrow hole an unknown protagonist is indicating the viewer to be quiet by placing his index finger on his mouth, as if there was a hidden secret. The Affair reveals a couple who is having an intimate moment in secret, with the suggestion of an affair. The Heist, presented through a window. Behind the glass a heist is taking place and the viewer becomes a witness of the robbery in the closed museum. Looking at the artwork entitled The Ritual the viewer can see through a temple window. A glimpse of an occult ritual is recognisable, which is usually seen only by the cult members. The artwork entitled The Yard stands for the graffiti culture. The perspective is taken through an another train’s window. A graffiti writer is in the middle of a night mission to create a graffiti, where he is about to be caught red handed.

EQUALITY

EQUALITY Permanent installation created for Festival Iminente, curated by Underdogs Gallery. Panorámico de Monsanto, Lisboa, Portugal – 2020 This piece was created in partnership with Artworks and Impersol, commissioned by Câmara Municipal de Lisboa. EQUALITY. Of gender, race, rights, options.This concept seems so obvious and natural that it is somehow absurd to still have to fight for it nowadays. Based on the stained glass panels found in temples that portray dogmas to the religions represented, the idea was to use the same visual language, with the same communication power and impact, changing the context, changing the narrative, to a contemporary subject, that needs to be part of the conversation e that should already be an unquestionable reality. Print on 3M™ Scotchcal™ Clear View Graphic film applied on glass in metal frame. 8400 × 5200 × 0.9 cm / Unique Piece / 2020 Photography © Midnight Madness and Crack Kids Studio. EQUALITY / CHAPTER II Times are changing. Working on an installation with a subject like equality only made sense if there was a dialogue, if the message became bigger than the aesthetics, if there was an opportunity to collaborate with a badass female artist, so i invited Cristiana Morais to create a photography work based on the installation i created for Festival Iminente. I am truly amazed and super proud of this collaboration, Cristiana has a powerful and unique way to approach equality and body positivity, the models were so amazing, in no time they created an atmosphere of community and freedom, something beautiful to experience. Chapter II came to life as a way to showcase the magic that happened this night, but also to allow experimentation, to find new ways to continue this dialogue over something so important. It was beautiful to see the exchange of ideas between Crack Kids Studio, Cristiana and everybody involved in this project, i couldn’t imagine a better way to embrace the idea of EQUALITY. EQUALITY became the visual manifestation of something essencial to this project, the idea of starting a conversation about equality of gender, race, rights, options, but in reality, about freedom, about claiming our right to see change, to be a part of change, towards a more inclusive, understanding and free environment for all. ! GRAPHIC PHOTOS BELOW ! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei3XlBIzYBM&rco=1

REALM

REALM PRENDRE LA TANGENCE, Collective show at MAIF Social Club, Paris, France – February 2022   Back to muralism in Lisbon, this time I accepted the challenge from @mazarikproperty and @renauld_instagram to create two murals side by side on the neighbour of Beato. Creating a narrative between the two surfaces, being inspired by the river views, by the location, the tension between figurative and abstract compositons with the goal of creating something that could be recognizable from in scale, as these murals can be seen from far away.

FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS

FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS Solo Exhibition, Underdogs Gallery, Lisboa, Portugal – September 2018 “I can’t access the Wi-Fi. The battery on my mobile is about to die. I can’t find anything interesting to watch on television. I have nothing to wear. I’ve been relegated to the friend zone. I hate Mondays. I have zero likes…” Exploring the great anxieties contained in the little dramas we face daily in the privileged comfort of our affluent societies, AKACORLEONE brings once again to Underdogs Gallery a reflection where irony and humour take on frivolous issues (which nevertheless have their serious weight) while making up the details and shaping the subjects of an entirely new body of works. Prominently applying a bas-relief technique to a set of varied media – some new and others that have been part of his visual repertoire –, the artist transforms these volatile tensions of the modern quotidian into new iconographic vignettes, openly blending, in a fluid and effortless way, elements from the languages of some of the artistic vanguards of the first half of the 20th century (art deco and constructivism in particular) with the depurated and dynamic chromatic dialogues, the geometric volumes and motifs (curvilinear and rectilinear), the stylised lines, and the symbolic graphic referents that have characterised his own authorial language.

REAL/UNREAL

REAL / UNREAL Artmossphere Art Biennale, Moscow Manege, Russia – August 2016 Invited by Underdogs Gallery as curators for the Artmossphere Biennale 2016 with the theme “Invisible Walls”, the concept to create an exclusive body of work was inspired by the legacy of the Soviet era vs. the contemporary visual references of the city of Moscow during one week’s artistic residency.

OVER/UNDER ACHIEVER

OVER / UNDER ACHIEVER Solo Exhibition, Underdogs Gallery, Lisbon, Portugal – July 2016 OVER / UNDER ACHIEVER presents a patently personal reflection with narrative contours where AkaCorleone explores the interior efforts that orient and characterise his creative process. The body of work presented here, based on the fundamental concepts of opposition and duality, materialises an honest view on the way the artist manages his methodologies as well as the results that either fall short of or exceed his expectations, illustrating a whole array of stimuli and pressures, objectives and obstacles, certainties and insecurities, aspirations and anxieties, inspiration and creative block, that accompany him in his artistic practice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBqKxWICmh8 Confronting and using these tensions as a base material for a dialectic constructive process, this authorial catharsis gains form in a set of typologies arranged according to the mediums that give them shape. The duality of contrasts that runs through these pieces and their accompanying titles is synthesised in the eloquent juxtaposition of opposing realities that enliven the distinctive language through which the artist has been creating a unique visual universe replete with chromatic dialogues and symbolic referents such as typographic elements, cosmic motifs, iconographic pictograms, narrative panels, and geometric patterns, accompanied here and there by dynamic characters that establish a confessional complicity with the viewer.

VOID – INSTALLATION

VOID – INSTALLATION Collective Exhibition, Laboratório de Actividades Criativas, Lagos, Portugal – August 2015 Invited to participate in a an artistic residency and collective exhibition in an old prison in Lagos, Portugal, the inspiration came from the location of the installation, a prison cell. Based on the concept of confinement, solitude and self absortion, the idea for the installation was to cover a whole surface of the cell with a collage of multiple drawings, experiments, creating a visual diary of this journey while the anamorphic illusion painting on the cell reads VOID, in a a clear contrast between the visual chaos on the wall covered with the collage.

DISTANT LAND

DISTAND LAND Duo Exhibition with Kruella D’Enfer, Toot Yung Art Center, Bangkok, Thailand — August 2014 Distant Land is the result of a 3 month artistic residency at Toot Yung Art Center, where the artists set out to absorve the culture and visual references experienced living in a city like Bangkok. Inspired by the local people, beliefs, legends or ordinary life, this exhibition was creatd with the goal to bring some of the local street life into the gallery space.

FIND YOURSELF IN CHAOS

FIND YOURSELF IN CHAOS Solo Exhibition, Underdogs Galley, Lisbon, Portugal – February 2014 Based on what the artist describes as “the chaos in which I constantly find myself and see around me”, the exhibition sets as objective the exploration of that vertigo of excess and saturation which characterises life in contemporary urban societies, setting out from his personal visual universe to create reflections and manipulation games where the author himself determines what information he wants to reveal or omit. According to the artist’s statement: “The feeling of excess of information in the brain which makes it impossible to focus on one task alone, the idea that we’re never satisfied making us therefore accumulate, the visual pollution to which we submit ourselves without questioning, are notions I address in the works created for the exhibition.”