ALEXANDRE ESTRELA BRINGS ART, SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY INTO DIALOGUE IN ELVAS

The Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Elvas (MACE) presents Echoes of the Internal Figure, a solo exhibition by Alexandre Estrela (Lisbon, Portugal, 1971), Portugal's representative at the Venice Biennale. The exhibition concludes a trilogy begun with Nature Hates the Monster at Culturgest, Lisbon (2024), and continued with Interval at CIAJG, Guimarães (2025). Bringing together art, science and philosophy, the exhibition examines the relationships between children's drawing, cognitive development and internal representation.

At the core of the project are drawings produced by children aged between 18 months and eight years, whom Estrela invited to depict spider webs. The artist proposes that these images reveal successive stages in the development of the mind's internal structure. Drawing upon his Theory of the Echoes of the Internal Figure, Estrela constructs an exhibition in which distinct graphic forms correspond to different phases of cognitive development. Conceived through a museological framework, the installation transforms MACE into a hybrid space reminiscent of both a natural history museum and a scientific display.

Alongside this body of drawings, the exhibition brings together a selection of earlier works by Estrela addressing a wide range of conceptual concerns, including The Groningen School, a work exploring the influence of the Groningen school on mathematics applied to three-dimensional objects and on theories of perpetual motion. Taken as a whole, the exhibition reinforces the artist's ongoing investigation into the relationship between abstraction, the limits of representation, and the philosophical, scientific and historical dimensions of artistic practice.

Alexandre Estrela: Echoes of the Internal Figure remains on view through 4 October 2026 at the Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Elvas (MACE), Rua da Cadeia, Elvas, Portugal.