Painting by Rui Macedo

Rui Macedo works exclusively with painting and site-specific painting installations, challenging viewers’ expectations. By manipulating conventional painting formats and disrupting the way they are presented, the artist seeks to reconfigure the relationship between spectator and artwork. Through the artifice of painting as a deliberate perceptual trick, viewers are confronted with the arbitrariness of their own criteria regarding what a painting ‘should’ be. This tension is evident in the artwork Untitled (Memorabilia Series), wherein the painting appears disguised, defying its conventional appearance and presenting the viewer with frames seemingly devoid of painted imagery. In the apparent absence of a subject, the painting acts as a visual and conceptual trap, incorporating expectation as an integral part of the pictorial apparatus. Notable exhibitions include (Land)Scaping Normative Thinking, Millennium BCP Foundation, Lisbon, (2017); Sfumato, Tabacalera, Madrid, (2019); (In) dispensable or the Painting that Troubles the Museum Collection, Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea do Chiado (MNAC), Lisbon, (2019); Gaps, Rifts and Other Artifices, Travessa da Ermida Project, Lisbon, (2021); and ...e o perú fugiu!, Carpintarias de São Lázaro, Lisbon (2025).