Ilhas Studio — O Calígrafo Ocidental.
Fernando Lemos e o Japão
Exhibition catalogue for O Calígrafo Ocidental. Fernando Lemos e o Japão (The Western Calligrapher. Fernando Lemos and Japan).
This catalogue brings together a significant selection of images of works from the exhibition, many of them previously unseen in Portugal.
The graphic design was based on the close relationship that the artist established with Japan and its culture. The book’s design sought to include details and nuances that established a bridge with Japanese textures, materials and graphic forms. The vertical layout of the typography on the cover is indicative of this relationship. The typography on the cover itself, Migra (by Pangram Pangram Foundry), with its accentuated serifs, seeks this connection with the Japanese calligraphy that Fernando Lemos studied.
The featured work was made during Fernando Lemos’ stay in Japan, where he arrived with a scholarship from the Gulbenkian Foundation to study Japanese calligraphy and art, and bear witness to the seminal influence of Japanese culture on his artistic practice.
The book also includes a wide range of texts including an essay by each of the exhibition’s curators, Leonor Nazaré and Rosely Nakagawa, and an essay by Ryuta Imafuku.
This book is the result of the exhibition of the same name, which marks the reopening of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s Modern Art Centre (CAM).
The book is punctuated by fold-outs where prints from Lemos' personal collection break up the flow of his graphic and photographic works. These fold-outs also create different levels of reading, immediately juxtaposing the artist's work and his graphic references.
The texts at the beginning of the book feature shading on the side, creating a soft gradient that allows us to finally enter Lemos' work.
