Visto do Outro Lado

Shana Kaplow

As Seen From the Other Side

A Contemporary Painting Exhibition by Shana Kaplow

March 20 - June 12, 2026

Vernissage/Opening: Friday, March 20 at 7 pm

Open every Friday: 13H-17H or any day by appointment

Artist Statement

My paintings and works on paper explore the tensions between everyday consumption and environmental consequence in a world that is inextricably connected. My current series of paintings, “As Seen From the Other Side,” began by reflecting images of energy infrastructures in a curved, circular mirror. Power lines, solar orbs, oil derricks, and crude oil are transformed into abstractions that suggest celestial mechanics, electromagnetic fields, or planetary orbits. In the mirror’s reflection, tangible or familiar systems are seen through a wider lens. The ‘grid’ becomes fluid. Distortion reveals instability in these structures, signaling either the brink of collapse or the potential for transformation. Through an iterative and improvisational painting process, I disperse, pour, dissolve, and trace, exploring physical qualities that are both concrete and mercurial, structural and atmospheric. I think of the process of painting like scientific imaging – a response to visual data that evokes an embodied experience as much as an intellectual one.

My father, a materials scientist, developed an early solar device (1976-1980) that used parabolic mirrors to concentrate sunlight, making affordable energy available to individual homes as part of a national effort to develop renewable energy. As his project launched, he died unexpectedly in his forties. In the decades since, processing this loss has coincided with relentless fossil fuel consumption and the rapid acceleration of climate change and environmental precarity. My artistic practice is an ongoing ‘conversation’ with my father and an exploration of what I carry forward from this personal and collective history. My father’s solar mirror transforms the substance of light, acting as both receiver and transmitter. My works acknowledge the sun as Earth’s primary energy source, inviting consideration of what enlightenment can mean in the age of climate change.

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Declaração da Artista

As minhas pinturas e trabalhos sobre papel exploram as tensões entre o consumo quotidiano e as consequências ambientais num mundo intrinsecamente interligado. A minha série atual de pinturas, “As Seen From the Other Side” (“Visto do Outro Lado”), começou a partir da reflexão de imagens de infraestruturas energéticas num espelho curvo e circular. Linhas elétricas, orbes solares, plataformas petrolíferas e petróleo bruto transformam-se em abstrações que evocam mecânicas celestes, campos eletromagnéticos ou órbitas planetárias. No reflexo do espelho, sistemas tangíveis ou familiares são observados através de uma lente mais ampla. A “rede” torna-se fluida. A distorção revela a instabilidade destas estruturas, sinalizando tanto o limiar do colapso como o potencial de transformação. Através de um processo de pintura iterativo e improvisado, disperso, verto, dissolvo e traço, explorando qualidades físicas que são simultaneamente concretas e voláteis, estruturais e atmosféricas. Penso no ato de pintar como uma forma de imagiologia científica — uma resposta a dados visuais que desperta uma experiência tanto sensorial como intelectual.

O meu pai, cientista de materiais, desenvolveu um dispositivo solar pioneiro (1976–1980) que utilizava espelhos parabólicos para concentrar a luz solar, tornando a energia acessível e económica para uso doméstico, num esforço nacional de promoção das energias renováveis. No início do projeto, faleceu inesperadamente, com pouco mais de quarenta anos. Nas décadas que se seguiram, o processo de lidar com essa perda coincidiu com o consumo incessante de combustíveis fósseis e a rápida aceleração das alterações climáticas e da precariedade ambiental. A minha prática artística é uma conversa contínua com o meu pai e uma exploração do que trago comigo desta história pessoal e coletiva. O espelho solar do meu pai transforma a substância da luz, atuando simultaneamente como recetor e transmissor. As minhas obras reconhecem o sol como a principal fonte de energia da Terra e convidam à reflexão sobre o que o esclarecimento pode significar na era das alterações climáticas.

Biography

(b. 1962, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA)

Shana Kaplow has exhibited her work nationally and internationally at venues such as The Minneapolis Institute of Art, The Tianjin Museum of Art, Walker Art Center, The Asheville Museum of Art, Dreamsong Gallery, The Soap Factory, Rosalux Gallery, 55 Mercer Gallery, Franklin Art Works, and Weinstein Gallery. She was awarded The Joan Mitchell Foundation Artists Grant for Painters and Sculptors, the McKnight Foundation Artist Fellowship, The Bush Foundation Artist Fellowship, and several Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grants. She has been an artist-in-residence at Yaddo, the Joan Mitchell Center, Vashon Island Artist Residency, Red Gate International Artist Residency (Beijing), Vermont Studio Center, and the Grand Marais Artist Residency. Kaplow’s work was featured on Twin Cities Public Television’s MN Original. She holds an MFA from The Maryland Institute, College of Art, a BA from Connecticut College, and is a Professor Emeritus of 2D Media and Interdisciplinary Art at St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud, MN. She founded an art and science consortium in St. Paul, MN, bringing together local activists, artists, policymakers, researchers, and scientists to facilitate cross-disciplinary dialogue on environmental issues and research. Shana is currently the Associate Director of Artists Development at Public Functionary in Minneapolis, where she co-facilitates Conversation Lab, a series of workshops for emerging artists in the PF Studios program. She lives and works in St. Paul, Minnesota, USA. She is excited to be exhibiting a new body of works on paper entitled, As Seen From the Other Side at Atelier Ghostbirds Gallery in Caldas da Rainha, Portugal, in 2026. Shana’s work can be seen online at www.shanakaplow.com.

Biografia

(n. 1962, Cambridge, Massachusetts, EUA)

Shana Kaplow expôs o seu trabalho a nível nacional e internacional em instituições como o Minneapolis Institute of Art, Tianjin Museum of Art, Walker Art Center, Asheville Museum of Art, Dreamsong Gallery, The Soap Factory, Rosalux Gallery, 55 Mercer Gallery, Franklin Art Works e Weinstein Gallery. Foi distinguida com a Joan Mitchell Foundation Artists Grant for Painters and Sculptors, a McKnight Foundation Artist Fellowship, a Bush Foundation Artist Fellowship e várias Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grants. Participou em residências artísticas na Yaddo, Joan Mitchell Center, Vashon Island Artist Residency, Red Gate International Artist Residency (Pequim), Vermont Studio Center e Grand Marais Artist Residency. O seu trabalho foi apresentado no programa MN Original da Twin Cities Public Television.

Kaplow tem um Mestrado em Belas-Artes pela Maryland Institute, College of Art e uma Licenciatura pelo Connecticut College. É Professora Emérita de Artes Interdisciplinares e Média Bidimensional na St. Cloud State University (St. Cloud, Minnesota). Fundou em St. Paul (MN) um consórcio de arte e ciência que reúne ativistas, artistas, decisores políticos, investigadores e cientistas, promovendo o diálogo interdisciplinar sobre questões e investigação ambientais.

Atualmente, é Diretora Associada de Desenvolvimento de Artistas na instituição Public Functionary, em Minneapolis, onde cofacilita o Conversation Lab, uma série de workshops destinados a artistas emergentes do programa PF Studios. Vive e trabalha em St. Paul, Minnesota, EUA. Está entusiasmada por apresentar uma nova série de trabalhos sobre papel intitulada As Seen From the Other Side na Atelier Ghostbirds Gallery, em Caldas da Rainha, Portugal, em 2026. O seu trabalho pode ser consultado em www.shanakaplow.com.

Fragments of What Makes Us Alive

-Fragmentos do Que Nos Faz Vivos

The International Mail Art Exhibition benefiting the Fund for Global Human Rights

Online Auction: Opens on March 4, 12 pm, and Closes on March 7, 8 pm

O Leilão Online: Abertura em 4 de março, às 12h, e encerramento em 7 de março, às 20h

Party in the Gallery: Saturday, March 7, 7 pm - 9:30 pm

A Festa na Galeria: sábado, 7 de março, das 19h às 21h30

Fragments of What Makes Us Alive

-Fragmentos do Que Nos Faz Vivos

The International Mail Art Exhibition benefiting the Fund for Global Human Rights

January 9 - March 13

Vernissage/Opening: Friday, January 9 at 7 pm

Open every Friday: 13H-17H or any other day by appointment

Exhibition Statements

Mail art emerged from the radical spirit of the avant-garde and the playful, subversive energy of Dada, using the postal system itself as a way to disrupt borders, hierarchies, and expectations of what art can be. In this exhibition, “Fragments of What Makes Us Alive,” 184 artists from 27 countries have sent 321 works through the mail, each posted piece arriving as a small testament to that legacy: a personal spark, a quiet act of resistance, a reminder that creativity travels further than any one gallery wall. Together, this dense constellation of envelopes, stamps, smudges, and marks forms a living network that echoes the Dadaists’ belief that art belongs in everyday life—and that even the most modest fragment can carry profound meaning. In a time of ongoing wars and a deeply divided world, these fragments also carry a wish to uplift spirits, to affirm the fragile yet persistent connections between us. The energy they generate extends further: in March, all 319 pieces will be gathered again in an online fundraising auction, with 100% of proceeds supporting the Fund for Global Human Rights. In a time of ongoing wars and a deeply divided world, this future auction is envisioned as another way to uplift spirits and turn the intimate gesture of a mailed artwork into a concrete act of solidarity with people whose fundamental rights are at risk.

Art is Life, and Life is Art.

Mika Aono

The Curator/Director

Atelier Ghostbirds

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Declaração de Exposição

A mail art nasceu do espírito radical da vanguarda e da energia lúdica e subversiva do Dadaísmo, utilizando o próprio sistema postal como forma de abalar fronteiras, hierarquias e expectativas sobre o que a arte pode ser. Nesta exposição, “Fragments of What Makes Us Alive”, 184 artistas de 27 países enviaram 321 trabalhos pelo correio, cada peça chegando como um pequeno testemunho desse legado: uma faísca pessoal, um gesto silencioso de resistência, um lembrete de que a criatividade viaja para lá de qualquer parede de galeria. Em conjunto, esta densa constelação de envelopes, selos, manchas e marcas forma uma rede viva que ecoa a crença dos dadaístas de que a arte pertence ao quotidiano – e de que mesmo o fragmento mais modesto pode conter um significado profundo. Num tempo de guerras em curso e de um mundo profundamente dividido, estes fragmentos transportam também um desejo de elevar o ânimo, de afirmar as ligações frágeis mas persistentes que existem entre nós. A energia que geram vai mais longe: em março, as 319 peças serão novamente reunidas numa leilão online de angariação de fundos, com 100% das receitas a reverter para o Fund for Global Human Rights. Num tempo de guerras em curso e de um mundo profundamente dividido, este leilão futuro é pensado como mais uma forma de elevar espíritos e transformar o gesto íntimo de uma obra enviada pelo correio num ato concreto de solidariedade com pessoas cujos direitos fundamentais estão em risco.

A arte é vida, e a vida é arte

Mika Aono
Curadora/Diretora
Atelier Ghostbirds

The exhibition is featured in a local paper, Gazeta das Caldas on January 15, 2026

Pretending

- Fingindo ou Fingimento I

Pretending_Fingindo ou Fingimento

Izumi Ueda Yuu, Luís Almeida, D. Dominick Lombardi, Run Jian

November 8 - December 30, 2025

Vernissage/Opening: Friday, November 7 at 7 pm

Open every Tuesday, Thursday & Friday: 13H-17H or any other day by appointment

Artist Statements

Izumi Ueda Yuu

I was born in Japan after the war as a baby boomer. Since 2015 I have lived and worked in Lisbon. I’m interested in the notion of animism, that things we are surrounded by can be spirited and respected. I create images and objects with familiar shapes from everyday life. I draw, paint, print, collage and cast paper sculptures. The texture of paper can be like they are our own skin. I want my work to be breathing and paper is perfect material for it

Bio:
Izumi Ueda Yuu is a Japanese-born visual artist who lives and works in Lisbon. Yuu attended Kuwasawa Design School in Tokyo and received her BFA in Sculpture from Maryland Institute College of Art. She is a shortlist for The Sovereign Portuguese Art Prize 2025 and a finalist for the Luxembourg Art Prize 2019. She has had solo exhibitions at Museu do Oriente, 2016, and Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes 2018&2024, “Ocean is There”. She is a two-time recipient of the Maryland State Arts Council grant for individual artists and has been an artist in residence at Foundation OBRAS (Portugal), OBRAS-Holland, Atelier Outotsu (Osaka), and Awagami Factory (Yoshinogawa).Lu

Luís Almeida

For the last ten years, my artistic practice was almost only focused on drawing. I used charcoal for many years because of the directness and fastness with which I can work with that material. And the high contrasted result between black and white always appealed to me. I recently began painting with oil, which I appreciate very much. It’s a different medium which requires a longer time to work on and working with colors opened a new world for me. My work is figurative and I'm not searching only for a realistic or naturalistic approach. My approach is a mix of several comic and cartoonish intentions, and it reveals a figurative/ adolescent world where the narrative is put aside in order for an agglomeration of many small stories to keep building the space and to start creating connections between them

Bio:
Born in 1985 in Lisbon, Portugal. Graduated in Basic and Advanced Course of Fine Arts at the Ar.Co school (2013, Lisbon). The individual exhibitions include: Heads Will Roll, Gallery Braço Perna 44 (Lisbon, 2024); Hi, It’s me Johnny, A Base (Lisbon, 2024); Caylus, MU.SA - Museu das Artes de Sintra (Sintra, 2024); (Re)Descobrir os Mestres, Solar dos Zagalos (Almada, 2023); Strange Days, Quase Galeria, (Porto, 2022); Playing with Fire, Galeria Alecrim 50, (2017, Lisbon); Santa Fé, Espace Pilote (Paris, 2016) and O Paraíso Não É Por Aí…, Galeria Alecrim 50 (2016, Lisbon).
Among the collective projects, the following stand out: Whose Masks - New edition, Galeria Nova Ogiva (Óbidos, 2023); Various Positions, BAG - Banco das Artes Galeria (2022, Leiria); Whose Masks, Quinta Magnólia Cultural Center, (2021, Funchal); Orto di Incendio, National Museum of Contemporary Art (2019, Lisbon) / Istituto Centrale per la Grafica, (2019, Rome); 66th Jeune Création edition, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac (2016, Paris).

D. Dominick Lombardi

"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life andyou will call it fate." Carl Jung

As a child, I have distinct memories of making small drawings of strange fish that I would cut out and move around in circles on the floor, as I imagined I was playing in the ocean. Today, I strongly believe that the studio is the ultimate sanctuary where one can fully control thought, reason, movement, aesthetic decisions and solve the puzzle of creating. My most recent series of paintings in “Fingindo ou Fingimento (Pretending)” are an investigation into the influence of the collective unconscious. During the more critical days of the COVID shutdown, I made thousands of tiny drawings that captured unconscious visual prompts. Today, I am revisiting a handful of the more curious drawings done at that time as subjects of paintings. I do this with the hope of better understanding the endless connection we all have to unconscious thoughts and images.

Bio:

D. Dominick Lombardi is an artist, writer and curator. Before Covid, he was represented by Kim Foster Gallery, New York, NY. Currently, Lombardi is represented by Prince Gallery in Copenhagen, Denmark, and is currently looking for representation in NYC. In addition to those types of relationships, Lombardi has been a part a series of exhibitions, curating shows at a variety of institutions including the Morean Arts Center in St. Petersburg, FL; and the Hampden Gallery in Amherst, MA.

Lombardi has written features and art criticisms that have been published in the The Brooklyn Rail, New Art Examiner, Art & Antiques, Two Coats of Paint, The WeirdShow, Whitehot, ARTES, The Huffington Post, ARTslant, Art Experience NYC, Public Art and Ecology Magazine (China), The New York Times, Sculpture, Sculpture Review, d'ART (U.S. Editor), Art in Asia (S.Korea), Art Papers, Art Lies, ARTnews, & magazine, Juxtapoz, New Art Examiner, Art New England, NYARTS magazine, culturecatch and others

Run Jiang

My work often talks about intimacy. As an artist, I want my work to achieve a universal connection by expressing something extremely personal. I intend to convey not just the intimate content, but also a direct sense of honesty, an invitation to a private world. The “dream drawing series” is one of them. I experience virtual things in our dreams, but produce real emotions, which can even affect my actions in reality. They are like a story of my own subconscious investigation. It’s me, but not me, who invented them. Since 2012, I began to note my dreams every morning and then draw them down. After being registered, they seem to become some real memories, rather than a virtual passing moment. Later, I began to do the “mixed dreams series”, using prints of my “dream drawings” as collage pieces, to combine a new virtual world.

Bio:

Born in 1986 in Dalian, Run Jiang is a Chinese artist based in Lisbon.
She studied drawing from an early age and attended both middle school and high school, specializing in art.
She graduated from the China Academy of Art in Cinema and Publicity (2009) and obtained her master's degree in plastic arts with Jury’s Congratulations in Marseille Fine Art School (2013). She then passed a one-year learning theatre at the University of Paris 8.
In 2015, she emigrated to Portugal, becoming a resident artist at Mart Art residency, where she received a Scholarship (2017-2018). In 2017, she was selected as an artist for the 11th Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso Prize (Portugal) and was one of the nominees of The FID Prize (France).
She has shown her work in Portugal and elsewhere. Her work was collected by many institutions, including Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Gulbenkian Art Library, Camões Institution, and the University of Tor Vergata.
She is now represented by Braçoperna44 Gallery in Lisbon, Portugal.

Still There

Still There _Shooting Stills, Shooting Blanks

A Contemporary Photography Exhibition by Randy Eriksen & Gonzalo Ponce

August 1 - October 31, 2025

Vernissage/Opening: Friday, August at 7 pm

Open every Friday: 13H-17H or any day by appointment

Artist Statements

Randy Eriksen

This series of images is a visual metaphor for forgetfulness and memory loss that often come with aging. Our minds are impressed with experiences which become memories, much like walls are painted, papered, and etched.
Over time, these memories can weather, age, and fade, or be pasted over with new impressions, defaced by dementia, smeared with senility. What once was in focus, clear, and whole, are now remnants, shadows, rough daubs, and careless encrustations of cryptic recollection.

I use my camera to document these losses, these baffling transformations. Just as an old mind has been affected by many people and many places, so too have the images I photograph been altered by time, nature, and the human hand. As with memory, the simple beauty of purity has been supplanted by the entangled aesthetics of entropy.

Bio:
Randy Eriksen (b. 1954) has been a practicing amateur photographer since the early 1970s. In addition to creating art and photography, Eriksen recently retired after over 35 years as a property master in the film and television industry. He emigrated with his wife, Dorothy Bulac-Eriksen, to Portugal in 2022. His photographs have been exhibited in galleries, cafés, and bookshops throughout Seattle and Southern California. His artwork includes straight photography, photo-sculpture, and both digital and analog photo-collage. He currently lives and works in Caldas da Rainha, Portugal.

Gonzalo Ponce

My photographic work is composed of shapes, spaces, and people that stand apart from everyday life. These images capture corners and abstractions—spaces inhabited by color and form that seem to call out, even if they might otherwise have been forgotten.
Colors inside a prison, a drag queen from Valparaíso, Chile, a flower breaking through concrete… the quiet loneliness of objects that appear inert yet feel strangely alive —these are the elements of this exhibition.

In these photographs, people and places seem to lean on one another, each helping the other remain visible—to be remembered, to exist. The images are bound together by a palette of red, green, and blue tones, offering a sense of chromatic unity. I came to understand this only gradually, through years of practice.
Still There is a tribute to overlooked corners —and to the people who persist in them— remaining present, resisting disappearance.

Bio:
Born in Santiago, Chile.
Gonzalo Ponce (b. 1986) studied advertising photography but later developed a deep interest in documentary photography.
Ponce worked for over ten years as a news correspondent for various Chilean media outlets and was also on staff at the Italian news agency NurPhoto. This experience allowed him to develop alternative bodies of work separate from his formal assignments.
His photography has been shown in both group and solo exhibitions, including the International Photography Festival of Valparaíso (FIFV) and at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Chile. He currently lives and works in Caldas da Rainha, Portugal

Palimpsest - Palimpsesto

A Printmaking Exhibition celebrating the Atelier Ghostbirds’ 1st Anniversary

--- Uma exposição de gravura em celebração do primeiro aniversário do Atelier Ghostbirds

May 9 - July 25, 2025

Vernissage: Friday, May 9 at 7 pm, Caldas Late Night: May 30 & 31, 6 pm - midnight

Open every Friday: 13H-17H or any day by appointment

Exhibiting Artists:

Chico D’el Mico, Cynthia Back, GRAVE Collective: Pedro Rolo,Veloz Narua, and Vicente Faria, Koki Foster, Mika Aono, Neal Williams, Nuno Bettencourt, Ricardo Castro, Rubi Gamallo, Vasco Cavalheiro, Zelia Evora