Matèria is proud to present A partir daqui só há dragões, Francisca Valador’s debut solo show at the gallery. Opening on April 29, the exhibition, part of the program celebrating the gallery's 10th anniversary, offers a comprehensive view of the artist’s evolving practice, where the boundaries between painting, sculpture, and installation dissolve into a cohesive whole.

 The exhibition’s title — A partir daqui só há dragões (From here on, there are only dragons) — refers to a phrase once used on Medieval maps to mark uncharted territories. This notion of the unknown, of things gradually revealing themselves over time, is at the heart of Valador’s approach to Matèria’s space.

 Showcased is a new series of small-scale paintings on stainless steel supports, a material that alters how light interacts with the surface of each work. At first glance, the gallery may appear empty, but as the eye adjusts, the paintings begin to emerge alongside delicate, intimate sculptural presences that shift between visibility and invisibility. In these delicate scenes with bright colors, botanical shapes and animals emerge and interrupt the horizon, evoking abstractions and suggesting something beyond. This interplay between vitality, reconstruction and harmony of forms, brings to life surprising contrasts created from everyday objects.

 This sensibility characterises Valador’s broader practice, where collected elements—flowers, seeds, fruits, and insects—are carefully arranged to create new narratives. Paraphrasing the artist's words: "Pequenos fragmentos, juntos, tornam-se construtivos de um todo"— "small fragments, together, become the building blocks of a whole". When brought together, these objects acquire symbolic weight, echoing the tradition of still life painting while preserving a conceptual openness. Despite their modest scale, they suggest a broader scenario, respecting the proportions of the depicted motifs and imbuing them with deep symbolic meaning, inviting the viewer to reflect on the relationships between the objects and the spaces they inhabit.

 Following the group exhibition 10 on Paper, Matèria continues its 2025 program, celebrating the gallery's 10th anniversary. This series of exhibitions reflects its vision and approach, highlighting a dual focus: both the discovery and promotion of emerging artistic voices and the presentation of curatorial projects that explore the work of its represented artists in conversation with the contemporary art landscape.


*The opening will take place concurrently with Monitor presenting Thomas Braida’s solo show.