Fernão Cruz was born in Lisbon in 1995. With a degree in Painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon, he studied at Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Barcelona between 2016 and 2017. Also in 2017 he was resident artist at Banana.Jam Art Space in Shenzhen, China, and, in 2018, at Centro de Estudos de Arte Contemporânea in Vila Nova da Barquinha. In parallel, also in 2018, he launched the artist’s book Stretching can be easy, in collaboration with Rui da Paz. In his work Cruz explores different media of artistic production, including painting, drawing, sculpture and installation. Cruz won the 2017 Young Art National Prize by Carpe Diem Arte e Pesquisa and the Millennium BCP Foundation. He has shown his work regularly since 2015, including in solo exhibitions such as Fortaleza, Travessa da Ermida, Lisbon, 2018; Quarto Blindado, CIAJG – José de Guimarães International Arts Centre, Guimarães, 2021; and Morder o Pó, at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon. He has also participated in group exhibition such as Quatro Elementos, Porto Municipal Gallery, Porto, 2017; Constelações, Berardo Collection Museum, Lisbon, 2019; and Red Light: Sexualidade e Representação, at the Norlinda and José Lima Collection, Centro de Arte Oliva, São João da Madeira, 2020. His work is represented in various collections, including those of CACE: Coleção de Arte Contemporânea do Estado Português; the Modern Art Centre of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation; the Norlinda and José Lima Collection; the Fernando Figueiredo Ribeiro Collection; the EDP Foundation / MAAT Art Collection; the PLMJ Foundation, among others.
The exhibition Morder o Pó was awarded the SPA Autores 2022 Prize by the Portuguese Society of Authors in the category of Best Visual Arts Exhibition. Recently, Fernão Cruz was selected by Ana Soromenho and José Fernandes from the Jornal Expresso as being among the 50 figures who promise to mark the coming decades.
Carolina Quintela
