Manuel Forte

Galería Karen Huber announce is anybody here?, the first solo show at the gallery of the Portuguese-born and Mexico-based artist, Manuel Forte (1978, Oporto, PT).

Forte works across painting, drawing, sculpture and installation to create large-scale environments which acquire dimensionality via the use of found objects and an approach to muralism that challenges traditional notions of where two-dimensional painting ends and sculpture begins. His work deals with themes relative to domesticity and fantasy. In his scenes we perceive the absence of the people who were once there, inviting us to travel across a time that can belong to the present, past or future.

Forte's painting seeks to create sensorial experiences in which the viewer can (literally) inhabit, interact and relate. In this way, he manages to dispel the sense of preciousness associated with art and invites the public to enter worlds that feel familiar yet novel. He dialogues with pictorial tradition through gestural interventions, unexpected compositions, colorful prints and subtle figurative suggestions.

In 2011 Manuel Forte graduated in Painting at Ar.Co Lisboa and took the Video Art course of the "Gulbenkian Program of Creation and Artistic Creativity", at the Gulbenkian Foundation (Lisbon, PT). His works have been exhibited in several countries such as Spain, Germany, Mexico and Portugal. In 2024 she will have two solo shows, one at Karen Huber Gallery (CDMX, MX) and another at Balcony (Lisbon, PT). He has participated in solo and group exhibitions in galleries such as Nixxxon (CDMX, MX), König Mexico City (CDMX, MX), Siheyuan Hua International (Berlin, DE) and in fairs such as Material (2023, CDMX, MX), Arco Madrid (2024, Madrid, ES) and The Armory Show (2024, NY, USA).

— Galería Karen Huber