Discover Meet Me at the Finger Buffet in the exhibition Love is Louder.
What I love about art is how it enables us to see the world differently, to look at things from another perspective, through the eyes of someone else. The work of Fernando Marques Penteado does exactly that: it invites us to step into his universe, to dive into the lives (and loves) of his characters, without ever quite knowing what is real and what is fictional.
Penteado was born in Brazil in 1955 but settled in Brussels a few years ago. Having been alerted to his presence here by a fellow Brazilian artist, I visited his studio/apartment. (The best recommendations always come from artists.) Welcomed by a charming man in flipflops and the odour of strong coffee, I had little idea how many people inhabited this attic space. Quickly though, I was introduced to a broad range of characters, all of Penteado’s creation, who accompany him through life.
The artist makes portraits of different characters – usually male – that he embroiders onto found fabrics. For him, embroidery is a form of drawing and his stitches have an expressive quality. He frames some textiles by stretching them on vintage tennis rackets or attaching them to found objects. Others are sewn together into book forms. Like a novelist, he weaves a whole backstory to each character, intertwining them with elements of his own autobiography.
Penteado also creates pinboard collages like filmic storyboards, giving hints of the tastes or backgrounds of his characters. They evoke the pinboards that so many of us have at home, featuring postcards, love notes, theatre tickets, … The traces of everyday interactions that we keep as mementoes.
He makes playful installations that combine his embroideries and collages with real items or pieces of furniture, to bring his imaginary protagonists to life. The result can resemble a domestic altar or a collection of ex-votos. They remind me of the voyeuristic pleasure that I have when visiting someone’s house for the first time, trying to piece together information about the inhabitant though the collection of trinkets they display on their mantlepiece.
Meet Me at the Finger Buffet, which is presented at the Love is Louder exhibition, tells the story of a Belgian man, called Xavier, who organises a reunion for a group of friends he met while on an Erasmus exchange programme in England as a young man. He is helped by his close friend Jean-Claude. The table in the installation reveals images evoked by their conversation about what will be offered during the finger buffet, while Penteado also depicts examples of the possible snacks that they will propose – highlighting the importance of food when entertaining friends.
In this work, as in several others, the Brazilian artist is interested in creating nuanced and playful evocations of male friendship. Because platonic love is a lot less often discussed than romantic love. And yet, friendships are of vital importance in our lives – often outliving romantic relationships. For that reason, I feel that this work adds a whimsical yet sincere element to the exhibition, which aims to offer a diverse range of love stories.
Discover Meet Me at the Finger Buffet in the exhibition Love is Louder.
