Ana Leonor Madeira Rodrigues

May 2009

 
The Draughtsman/woman draws him/herself

“…when drawing, the identity contained in the ways of my gestures is impressed in each line and each mark. When using the verb in a reflexive mode, to draw oneself, I intend to impose directly this idea of identity contained in the act of drawing.
I state about myself in drawings, because I may want to do it – as a conscious act – but I always draw myself [regardless], in as much as that action leads to a final result of an object which is its trace – of an act with more vegetative than subconscious characteristics. This peculiarity that distinguishes me from all others refers to the unique and unrepeatable character which constitutes each living entity and therefore each person, as much as my characteristics are unique, even at a microscopic level, as well as my genetic identity. This will be the way of each action that any creature, and by hypothesis, myself, will ever make.
The drawing object, does not exist prior to us, it is both a result of our spatial and phenomenal relationship with the world, and the direct result of our will and capacity for action, in this case, for drawing. (…)
(…) The identification of the specific characteristics of the [modes of] tracing of each author, of the line or any simple graphic mark that each one will produce, and which can be defined by more or less colorful adjectives, only shows that each person traces in a way which defines herself, and that is unique to herself, and this verification is as real as each person has a different and definable handwriting, signature and fingerprint.
The almost organicity of drawing, in this sense of a residue of ourselves, is one of the fundamental aspects that allows to understand its importance as a research method and as mode of registering the world that surrounds us, as well as ourselves, as much as it allows to establish a direct relation between the object of study, its perception and the registry of the way in which it was understood. A kind of registry that does not only make sense to ourselves, but which is also immediately accessible to anyone who looks at the drawing.

Rodrigues, Ana Leonor Madeira, Desenho [Drawing], ed. Quimera, 2003


CV

Ana Leonor M. Madeira Rodrigues is an artist and researcher interested in the cognitive processes of the act of drawing and in its specificity as a mode of non verbal communication. She is also interested in cultural and feminists studies.

Ana L. M. Rodrigues graduated in Fine Arts at ESBAL. During a semester, she attended the practical Anatomy Lessons at Campo Santana Hospital (which resulted on her first solo drawing exhibition). In 1984/85, under a scholarship by the Gulbenkian Foundation she attended the Akademie der Bildenden Kunst, in Munich. Between 1989 and 1992 she lived in Berlin where she specialized in Cultural Studies and Techniques of Aesthetics and Artistic Communication, at Hochschule der Kunst TU (1996). Ana L. M. Rodrigues holds a PhD in Architecture (Visual Communication) and she works as an Associate Lecturer at FA-UTL.

Ana L. M. Rodrigues published the following books O Desenho, Ordem do Pensamento Arquitectónico [Drawing, Order and Architectonic Thinking], by Estampa, Lisbon, 2000; O Desenho [Drawing], by Quimera, Lisbon, 2003; Queimado Por Azul [Burnt By Blue], by Assírio e Alvim, Lisbon, 2006 and Ensaios nas Margens do Futuro, Sentidos e Significações [Essays at the margins of the Future, Senses and Significations], a collection by Estampa, Lisbon, 2007.

Some of her more significant solo exhibitions were: Desenhos [Drawings], Casa da Cerca, Almada (1998);Der BBB Effect (video and installation), Galerie Fruchtig , Frankfurt (1998); The BBB Effect, a performance and participation at the conference Real Culture, Reproduction(s)and Rip-Offs, Kansas State University, USA; The BBB effect, more theories on a Pseudo Science performance and participation at a conference for the Festival of Postmodern Piracy, Ohio – Kent State University; Entropia, an installation at an old chemical laboratory at Escola Politécnica-Museu de Ciência, Lisbon (1999); Ai Flores do Verde Pinho, Museum and Botanical Garden, Lisbon (2001); O efeito BBB revisitado [the effect of BBB revisited]  (drawings and video), Diferença Gallery, Lisbon (2002); Documentos Sobre um Caso Tipo, Assírio & Alvim Gallery, Lisbon (2004); Perder-se de amores…, at the Monumental Gallery, Lisbon (2005); Actos Compulsivos da Comunicação entre Bactérias e Humanos [Compulsive Acts of Communication between Bacteria and Humans], Library of the College of Science and Technology, Universidade Nova.

She participated in several collective exhibitions such as Not to…, Lisbon (1999); O Efeito BBB,Lisbon (2000); Passos 2000 with the installation and video Sweet Sixteen, Lisbon (2002); Freemanifesta, distribution of 700 stickers allusive to the BBB effect, Frankfurt (2002); Drawing, - The Process, Kingston University, UK (2003); 10 anos de Desenho [10 years of Drawing] and O Desenho Dito [Drawing Told], both at Casa da Cerca, Almada (2008).

In 1999 she participated in a painting project for the Wall of Berlin, organized by East Side Gallery, which will be restored this year in June.