Wandering Thomas - Jose Ferreira April 23, 2011

Good Citizen invites you to Wandering Thomas, a solo exhibition by Jose Ferreira.

Wandering Thomas
Jose Ferreira
Opening Reception, Friday April 22 - 6-10 pm
Good Citizen Gallery
April 22 - May 28 2011

Wandering Thomas will include a recent body of work in which Jose Ferreira explores the notion of doubt embodied as a state between belief and disbelief. Through a series of photographs and works on paper, he emphasizes a state of reality in which the mind remains suspended between two contradictory propositions, unable to assent to either. Wandering Thomas refers to Caravaggio's The Incredulity of Saint Thomas (c. 1602), where Thomas's only way of being convinced of Christ's resurrection is by probing his wounds. This concept is extended metaphorically to spaces in the city, which harbor a deep symbolic resonance of being in transition-spaces and states that are constantly in-between.

Doubt brings into question the notion of "reality". It is a common form of psychological discord, with the rational part of one's thought involved in weighing evidence, without which belief has no real substance. Søren Kierkegaard has suggested that, for one to truly possess belief, one would also require a questioning of those beliefs. Decisions in politics, ethics, and law, which frequently determine the course of individual life, place great importance on doubt, and often foster elaborate adversarial processes to carefully sort through the evidence.

The photographs in the exhibition present the viewer with tactile, yet evanescent phenomena, which privilege natural elements, confusing our sense of time and space. In these works, ephemeral, unpredictable veils of mist, smoke, and pollution often obscure the metropolis, such that the concrete is displaced by the temporal, the human-made dwarfed by the phenomenal, and the viewer is disarmed by a suddenly unfamiliar space.

The exhibition portrays a series of meanders in which the artist seeks to reconcile a state of transitory identity, and to claim a margin of solace within lived experience.

Jose Ferreira is Assistant Professor of Sculpture at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He works with drawing, sculpture, photography, printmaking, and performance. He has shown internationally at the 8th Havana Biennale; The World Wide Video Festival, Sao Paulo/Amsterdam; Pavilhao 28, Lisbon; The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; The Public, U.K.; Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago; and Fabs, Warsaw, among other venues. Prior to his professorship at SAIC, Ferreira held a range of academic positions, and was a Research Fellow at the University of Sunderland. He has lectured at many universities including, The University of East London, The Winchester School of Art, the University of Portsmouth, Maryland Institute College of Art, Washington University, Oslo Art Academy, The Federal University of Minas Gerais, and the Durban University of Technology. He teaches internationally on a range of topics such as post-colonialism, urban studies, media, and memory.

Ferreira also serves as a consultant on various boards, including humanitarian and activist organizations such as freeDimensionl in NYC, and Paul Alt Research Associates, in Chicago. He is a regular contributor to various publications, exhibition catalogues and journals. His writings have appeared in, Artists Newsletter, Art South Africa, Art in America, The World Wide Video Festival catalogue, the 8th Havana Biennale catalogue, and many others.

Ferreira is a recipient of grants and awards from The Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development, The Hague; London Arts, London; The Human Science Research Council, South Africa, and the Calouste Gulbekian Foundation, Lisbon.