Helena Almeida: Inhabited Drawings

Helena Almeida: Inhabited Drawings was curated by Isabel Carlos, curator of the 2004 Biennale of Sydney. It was the first U.S. solo museum exhibition of the Portuguese artist Helena Almeida (1934-2018), and focused on her innovative approach to drawing, featuring works from the late 1970s through the time of the exhibition.

Almeida's creative work defied categorization by combining methods of mark-making (drawing, collage, and painting) with those of reproduction (photography and film), sculpture, and performance. Almeida merged these various disciplines in works on paper that explored issues of the body and self-representation as it relates to perception and the feminine. In the series Inhabited Drawing (Desenho habitado), 1975–78, Almeida drew directly upon photographs of herself, creating a "fictional body." As the artist wrote, "I turn myself into a drawing. My body as a drawing, myself as my own work—that was what I was searching for." The result was a fascinating approach to drawing as an open-ended and all-encompassing medium both at the center and the peripheries of her work.