the street is our gallery

November 13, 2020 to December 19, 2020

That Awkward Moment Between Birth and Death- Mário Belém. This is Mario Belém’s second solo exhibition at the Underdogs Gallery, in which he will be presenting an entirely new body of works.

Reflecting on the profound effects of this year’s events, the artist explores the two extremes that consume us daily in the relationship we have with our own identity – of a raw reality and an enlarged reality, of truth and fiction. Using a profusion of allegorical and symbolic details – spread in a dissimulated way throughout the intricate layers that give shape to more sculptural pieces, or in a more evident way in paintings – Mário Belém provides us with a set of clues that indicate the veiled construction of a whole, of a composition where a message prevails, a manifest truth with echoes of our own reality.

Through various formats that blend the mediums of painting and sculpture in wood, visual representation and the written word, “That Awkward Moment Between Birth and Death” materialises a set of visual narratives with a truly universal scope, resulting in an honest observation which, in the context of these new circumstances, invites us to accept and embrace life – that strange and awkward moment between birth and death – simply as it is.

— underdogs gallery

Rua Fernando Palha, Armazém 56

1950-132, Lisbon . Portugal

Monday to Friday, 2pm – 7pm

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Portuguese artist Mário Belém (b. 1977) works with equal skill on both the small-scale pieces he creates in the studio and on the large-scale murals that have earned him a leading role in the burgeoning Portuguese urban art scene. Over the last few years he has been solidifying a distinctively personal language, where he frequently juxtaposes images and words, composing visual narratives of a magical nature that are rooted in a balance between the familiar and the unusual and that explore various subjects inherent to communication, popular culture and the present human condition. Working mainly the medium of painting on wood in compositions of a sculptural nature, he has been presenting his oeuvre in solo and group exhibitions, besides outdoor spaces, both urban and natural, in countless locations.