Gabriel Ribeiro’s practice often explores the possibility for dialogue between video, photography and sculpture, while deliberately embracing frictions that erupt in their articulation. Through the merging of these mediums, Ribeiro has been concerned with creating immersive environments which are often encountered in a state of unfolding or becoming. Silicones, agar-agar, wax, treacle and petroleum jelly are key substances that act both as signifiers and performers of this capacity to mislead, transform or develop.
In his practice, Ribeiro interweaves historical references, speculative fiction, phenomenology and other ghostly matters as a way of conjuring the tension of in-betweenness, through which matter and meaning can be sustained, dissolved, or created anew. This conjectural and unfixed tendency informs a series of projects that summon the obscure impermanence of the material world, capable of producing unintelligible effects, often classified as monstrous.
Gabriel Ribeiro was born in 1990 in Rio de Janeiro, grew up in Brazil and obtained a BA in Fine Art Practice at the Chelsea School of Arts and Design in London and a Masters in Sculpture at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Lisbon. His practice oscillates at the intersection of photography, video and sculpture, as a way of exploring the discursive possibilities of matter. He currently lives and works in Lisbon, where he also completed the MAUMAUS International Study Programme. Ribeiro has recently participated in exhibitions, namely: Caring Is Sharing, CabanaMad ( Lisbon, 2022). Crack The Egg, Cordoaria Nacional (Lisbon, 2022). Dream Sequence, MAD (Lisbon, 2022). Suitcase Studies, SWAB, 2022 (Barcelona, 2022).QUENCH (individual exhibition), Duplex (Lisbon, 2022). A Straw That Broke The Camel’s Back, SWAB (Barcelona, 2021). Concrete and Private, Casa do Capitão (Lisbon, 2021). Reflections on Space, Galeria Útero (Lisbon, 2021), among others. Ribeiro also participated in residencies internationally, namely: Schiesslhaus AIR, Kollnburg (Germany, 2022). GlogauAIR, Berlin (Germany, 2022). CO-Residency, Online/Singapore (2020). Residency 108, Germantown (NY, USA, 2019). Ribeiro received the Espronceda Institute Residency Award in 2022 and the Millennium Foundation Young Artists Award in 2021.
