“The Dreamer” it’s a single-minded still photography mutated into a narrative piece, propelling an intensely self-aware and contemporary emotional mannerism into an inquiry of the human as an irredeemably social, yet irredeemably isolated, animal.

This work explores the gap produced between the style and the poetics, and this latent intellectualism it’s pitched against the most intense of existential longings.

In doing so, the work unleashes questions about the intermingling of personal and social identity, the slippery function of language, and, finally, the surprisingly redemptive role of tragic romanticism.

On the surface of an oh-so-human dilemma this piece it’s essentially a video portrait. In it, “The Dreamer” ponders his life and relationship, revealing that he’s never happy alone. Accordingly, he wonders who he is and exactly what constitutes his very self.

“The Dreamer” actually speaks of the inability to define oneself for oneself, and the myriad of problems that arise when we begin to look into this inability in even the idlest of ways. To step outside the flow of the good life, even momentarily, risks its breakdown.

JOSÉ DRUMMOND is a Portuguese artist currently based between Shanghai, Macau and Lisbon. His research-driven practice is an enigmatic, elliptical, and poetic investigation of the space in-between cultures and in-between mediums. Understanding the studio both as an experimental lab and archeological site, where questions on displacement, transience, and fragmented identities arise, Drummond combines and re-arranges visual and textual references from a wide-ranging personal canon, creating speculative memorabilia in a variety of materials, to catalyze a multiplicity of new open-ended meanings that challenge and disrupt the viewer’s experience with the works. Making use of a heterogeneous formal language where Installation, Video, Lights, Photography, Painting, and curatorial initiatives intersect, Drummond’s process-based hybrid works defy classifications and artistic genres.

2015 MFA in Creative Practice from the University of Plymouth (UK) and the Transart Institute in New York (USA). 1986/1994 At. Re – Atelier Livre with professor Pedro Morais (Portugal). 1987/1990 Foundation courses in Painting and Drawing in Ar.Co and SNBA (Portugal) – not completed. 1989 Scenography in IFICT (Portugal). 1999 Management of the Arts in IEEM (Macau). 2016 Sovereign Asian Art Award finalist. 2011 Asia Pacific Photography Prize finalist. Scholarships from the Orient Foundation (Portugal), the National Centre of Culture (Portugal), and the Cultural Institute of Macau (Macau). 1996 ARCO Madrid promotional image. 2016 Transart Triennale (Berlin). 1992 Biennial of Young Artists From Europe and the Mediterranean (Valencia).

Director of ZÌZHÌ — multi-disciplinary contemporary art research platform. Director of VAFA — Macau international video art festival. Director of XA – Xiang Art — multi-disciplinary curator platform. Curatorial initiatives explore the bridges between China and the West, eco-conscience, technology, and intermedia works. The most significant contributions include Where is China? –presented simultaneously at the Millennium Museum in Beijing and the Orient Museum in Lisbon; China? Faraway So Close — presented at Lyon Art Fair, VAFA 2014, and VAFA 2016 — presented at the Oriental Foundation in Macau. He has worked with John Baldessari, Lawrence Weiner, William Wegman, Harun Farocki, AES+F, Miranda July, Song Dong, Yin Xiuzhen, Zhang Huan, Cui Xiuwen, Wang Qingsong, Xing Danwen, Hong Hao, Chen Shaoxiong among others.