INÊS NORTON

Conscious Isolation

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Inês Norton’s (b.1982, Portugal) recent work, some shown as part of this exhibition, interrogates the digital simulacrum and the rejection of the body as evidenced by the rising interest in aseptic imaginaries. By focusing on the dialectics between the concepts of natural and synthetic, valuating the tensions between the two, Inês Norton’s work re-investigates the skin as the organ that defines us most thoroughly and which continues to create many barriers to communication, constituting the first and most distinctive visible trait of each of us. This subject and our relationship with it is exhibited, used, protected and even hidden, assumed as taboo in the artist’s works as a continuous research to question the reasons that may lead us to resist the touch of skin, while embracing the touch of synthetic, viscous, digital substances.  

Emphasizing the omnipresence
of artificiality, the artist confronts us with the presence of death, both of the body and
of consciousness, which means the doom of the essence of the human condition.

By reducing touch to the digital and to a certain omnipotence of the gaze, the body is reconfigured, fragmented and disassociated into parts – to mere limbs of amputated bodies where contact becomes subjugated to the aseptic. Again, we find the power of the digital meddling between us and reality, sanctioning a degree of intimacy.  The human is left alone if they only relate at a safe distance and with the mere involvement of their fingertips, to synthetic, digital bodies.

Inês Norton's works are present in several Public and Private Collections including the CAC Málaga Museum, Spain; Luciano Benneton Collection, Italy; Sindika Dokolo, Angola; Atlantic Private Bank, Angola; Camões Institute, Angola; Figueiredo Ribeiro, Portugal; Museum Biennial of Cerveira, Portugal; National Museum of Contemporary Art, Portugal; Otiima, Portugal, Harddisk Museum, among others.

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She has also participated in several exhibitions nationally and internationally such as MNAC, curated by Adelaide Ginga e Emília Ferreira (Lisbon); Presença art gallery , curated by Alexandre Melo (Oporto), Forum Braga, curated by Duarte Sequeira e Guilherme Braga da Cruz (Braga), SP55, curated by SP55 (Lisboa), Oliva Factory , curated by Paulo Mendes (São João da madeira), UCLA, curated by Carolina Quintela (Lisboa), Panorama, curated by Adelaide Ginga, Quartel Colecção Figueiredo Ribeiro, curated by Hugo Diniz, Miguel Justino gallery (Lisbon), Convent Sant Agosti, (Barcelona), Cerveira Biennial (Cerveira), Art Forum Copenhague (Denmark), CAC (Málaga), Luanda Triennial (Luanda), São Tomé Biennial (São Tomé), Factory Art (London), among others.