What grows and what never

(May 17 and July 12, 2025)

Presentation:

The presentation of Ana Torrie's graphic work at Tinta nos Nervostakes place simultaneously and in dialogue with the exhibition of the artist's large-scale works at Casa das Histórias Paula Rego, in Cascais.
Both reflect fundamental aspects in Ana Torrie's production. On the one hand, the construction of an intimate, confidential discourse, which brings out personal or fictional narratives and larger concerns through the design, conception and edition of unique or small-run artist's books. On the other hand, the elaboration of this restless, intense and visceral universe, through a plastic language that is reinforced in the appeal of scale, in the performative intentionality and in the desire to captivate the viewer. These are complementary moments that call for a double visit to the two spaces, to unveil the nightmares and imaginations that are revealed in Ana Torrie's grooves and risks.
In Tinta nos Nervoswe follow the development of two major cycles that have in the book object, self-published or assumed as a singular artistic piece, a founding relationship.
Ed Gar is a fictional character based on a real photograph, whose biographical narrative was built by images drawn and recorded by the artist over almost two decades. The book-box that holds the preparatory drawings and engravings that have been composing his universe, the artist's books that present The Exemplary Education of Ed Gar, and Silvestre, his alter-ego cat and the puppets that give them a special three-dimensional vision, will be exposed.
Also present is another three-dimensional piece, designed especially for this exhibition, in which a set of puppets - creatures molded and modeled, cooked and designed with salvage from other games - is put into action on a rotating pedestal table. Not functioning as models for drawings, but rather assume themselves as a creative aspect parallel to the artist's other work.
Founder of the engraving studio Guilhotina, Ana Torrie has edited a significant set of small stories  (the "pocket stories"), tailored to the hand and pocket. The Reliquary project brings together three of them, a trilogy that began with Heartbeat that now ends with the unpublished What Grows and What Never. The original studies, the strategies and ways of captivating the different characters are presented, the book, a unique example that had in the family memories material of artistic construction, interweaving real elements and literary texts by different authors invited to collaborate in the project.
The facsimile version of Reliquary, edited by Tinta nos Nervos, has a limited number of copies intervened, numbered and signed by the artist.