Since the beginning of his career, Barreiros has committed himself to sculpture. In his pieces, the dimensions of chance, time, disappointment, imperfection and imponderability shape a conception of sculpture as an unstable, uncertain realm. Sculpture is a possibility, a pause, an accident. Each piece is the outcome of a long process of creation and research, they are about time, they define a condition. Perhaps the most determining feature of his practice is the tendency to take the exhibition space as a stage and to make the pieces agents that are often disturbing, sarcastic, comic or exasperating. Using a wide variety of expedients and technical resources, the artist has produced a very diverse body of works, sometimes presenting extremely simple pieces, using a drawing, a sound, a noise, a word, a hum, or a metallic trill, but also the instability of a balance, a difference in scale or proportion, the absence of colour. Much of the singularity of Gonçalo Barreiros’ work seems to lie in the way in which he prepares the double movement that his works set in motion. Revealing a sophisticated domain of the mechanics of subversion, irony and incongruity, his works confront the spectator with his most intimate and inescapable reactions, and at the same time with the prejudices, censures and violence that govern many of our common values. The work triggers a set of much more discreet reflections that focus on the spectator himself, his convictions and his idiosyncrasies, but also on this space of supposed consensus where the friendly rules and protocols exist and where the processes of identity construction of the communities take place. Inevitably, these are spaces of loss and erosion, places of leveling and compromise where deviation, exception, and free will do not rage.

Gonçalo Barreiros lives and works in Lisbon. Graduated in Sculpture from the Ar.Co school (Lisbon) and then he obtained a Master Degree in Fine Arts at the Slade School of Fine Art in London, with a full scholarship from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.
A selection of his solo exhibitions includes: Então aquilo que, Galeria Vera Cortês (Lisbon, 2021); Recomeço do mundo, CAPC (Coimbra, 2018); Declaração Amigável, Galeria Vera Cortês (Lisbon, 2017); Condomínio Fechado, O Armário (Lisbon, 2017); Nosey Parker, Galeria Vera Cortês (Lisbon, 2014); Vraum, cur. Bruno Marchand, Chiado 8 (Lisbon, 2013); n.17, Empty Cube in Círculo das Artes Plásticas de Coimbra (2013) and Woodpecker, Ermida de Belém (Lisbon, 2012).
His work took part in several group shows, including Tisanas, Infusões para tempos próximos, cur. Maria do Mar Fazenda, Fundação Eugénio de Almeida (Évora, 2022); Mão-Asa Olho-Satélite, Uppercut (Lisboa, 2021); Ensaio para uma comunidade (take1), Curated by Paulo Mendes, MAAT (Lisbon, 2021); O PEQUENO MUNDO, a partir da Coleção da Caixa Geral de Depósitos, curated by Sérgio Mah, Museu de Arte Contemporânea Nadir Afonso (Chaves, 2020) and Culturgest (Lisbon, 2021); The Invisible Show. An Aural Journey Through The 20th Century, curated by Delfim Sardo, Culturgest (Lisbon, 2020); Toutes Les Lignes Droites Sont Courbes, curated by Yolande De Bontridder and Jennifer Plasman, Villa Carpentier, Renaix (Belgium, 2020); Wait, Centro Cultural de Belém (Lisbon, 2019); Trabalho Capital, Fundação Oliva (São João da Madeira, 2019); Passeios, Museu do Caramulo (2018); Involuntary Memory, Luis Adentado Gallery (Valencia, 2017); Sala dos Gessos, Museu da Eletricidade (Lisbon, 2016 ); Sem título é um bom título, Ar Sólido (Lisbon, 2016 ); Materiais Transitórios, Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes (Lisbon, 2016 ); Canal Caveira, Cordoaria Nacional (Lisbon, 2015); O Riso, Museu da Eletricidade (Lisbon, 2012); Plus 1, Perry Rubenstein Gallery (New York, 2010); Triangle Room (Curatorial Program of the Chelsea College of Art and Design, 2008) and EDP Art Prize – New Artists, Museu de Serralves (Oporto, 2003).