Satan Plongeant dans le Styx, by Pedro Duarte Jorge
20th May — 16th Jun 2023

‘The Future is tangible. We find it daily mixed with the Present. The Past finds us only in the part that entertains us. We keep the remainder of that time still tidy, in case it may become necessary, but we trust that soon we will be sure of ourselves. Enough so that we no longer remember it. And finally assured that everything is concepts and names, that we have mastered the ideas of Paradise and Hell, we spread them around our environment, always making them available. Today’s Humanity fell from the sky on top of the heads of the fearful old people.’

PLATO presents ‘Satan Plongeant dans le Styx’, a solo show by Pedro Duarte Jorge. The show is like a box handed to us with the recommendation never to open it. We are immediately alerted to tame our curiosity and contain our instinct. Throughout the exhibition, Pedro presents new work with metaphorical expressions of prophecy. This portrait of human fragility reaches biblical proportions in its portrayal of human fragility. The duality between Good and Evil, between Paradise and Hell, is placed crudely at our disposal. Like the mythological Pandora’s box, it can release all the evils of the world from its interior, but it can also, when we try to contain it, keep just hope.

Pedro Duarte Jorge (Lisbon), post-graduated in Contemporary Photography Discourses at FBAUL, also attended a degree in Engineering at Lusófona University and a Photography course at IADE. In recent years he has been dedicating himself to the research of photography as a systematic thought and communication process. He exhibited individually and collectively from an early age, highlighting “A non independent study on Women”, AXA Building (Porto, 2014); “Confront”, Arquivo 237 (Lisbon, 2015); “Study”, Art Room (Lisbon, 2017); “Copacabana”, Cidadela Art District (Cascais); “Supernatural and Wonderful Existence”, Germinal Gallery (Lisbon, 2017); “Other Worlds”, Pavilion 31 H.P.L. (Lisbon, 2022), among others. His work, which has both a poetic and a voyeuristic sense, seeks to reveal the volatilities of fragile moments and the friction of the intimate in the apparent day-to-day life of dreams. In his work, we’re confronted by his fascination with the subtle metaphors that life presents us with in an extensive spectrum of realities.