Gil Heitor Cortesão

The painting Untitled (Mapa 3) (2007) highlights Gil Heitor Cortesão’s (b. 1967, Lisbon) unique artistic practice: the artist produces his works as pictures behind glass, which are presented as smooth surfaces without any painted texture. Their production process requires an exact and planned reversal of the painting process, so “defects” or “parasites” are unavoidable – in fact, Cortesão deliberately retains them. The painting is finally covered by a layer of white paint on the side that is actually painted, so the direct painting work remains inaccessible and the work thus creates an intelligent painted reflection of the artistic process itself. In its content, the formal detachment and remoteness of these works correspond to strangely timeless visions caught between virtuality and reality which give a broad view of the same group of tall buildings in each of the landscapes shown here, but overlaid with distorted images of the continents.