About

Pilar Corrias is pleased to present an exhibition of never before seen paintings by Portuguese artist Julião Sarmento (1948-2021), titled Arena. The iconography and titles of each of the works, the last he made before his death in May 2021, are loosely based on drawings by Francisco de Goya, seen by Sarmento at the Museo del Prado in 2019.

Abstracted from their original context and reimagined on a grand scale, the figures in Sarmento’s paintings offer visions of human life by turns haunting, comic and triumphant, while also disrupting a number of key art historical notions, namely, those of …