Reflections – Irony, Criticism and Freedom of Expression

GALERIA MUNICIPAL ARTUR BUAL

Créditos

Vasco Gargalo

Reflections is an exhibition of cartoons and illustrations: a look at national and international current affairs, at climate change, global warming, plastics in the oceans and the planet's dwindling water — problems we face every single day. Alongside these run other themes: humanitarian questions, migrants, war, child exploitation, the policies and predicaments of the European Union, human rights, women's rights, and much else that forms part of our daily lives.

The works selected for Reflections are readings of the state of our planet, always with a provocative edge, an appeal wrapped in sarcasm, driven by the need for messages that are strong and that land. It is the artist's need for the image — to sound the alarm immediately and universally, and to prompt the viewer to think about these problems.

We are in urgent need of intervention, of experiment, if we are to protect ourselves from a global elite that helps itself to the Planet and to Humanity in order to satisfy its every appetite — from those who believe themselves to occupy some higher plane.

These works were made with a single conviction: to dismantle the walls and prejudices that live inside some of us, as a spur to evolve in our human essence, and to give us back our humanity and our respect for one another, for our planet and for animals.

We are part of a Planet in permanent flux, and we have both the obligation and the duty to keep pace with it, carrying firm humanist and political convictions. This exhibition, then, gathers the artist's moments of introspection, leading us to think by way of satirical drawing — a tool of intervention. Instinctively, a creative process takes shape: a constant search for ways of communicating through the art of drawing. These are thoughts passed from the work to the public, a current we need for the road of our own evolution.

Vasco Gargalo

Vasco Gargalo (b. 1977) is a Portuguese cartoonist, born in Vila Franca de Xira, with a substantial body of work published in the Portuguese and international press.

A professional illustrator and cartoonist, he is a regular contributor to Sábado magazine, to D magazine (Correio da Manhã), and to the newspapers i and Sol. Some of his finest illustrations and cartoons have appeared in Sábado, Expresso, Jornal i, Le Monde Diplomatique (Portuguese edition), Courrier International (France), De Groene Amsterdammer (Netherlands), Dromos (Greece) and Le Temps (Switzerland). He is a regular contributor to The Cartoon Movement.

He is an ambassador for United Sketches and a member of Cartooning for Peace, organisations that bring together cartoonists working in the cause of peace and freedom of expression.

An award-winning cartoonist both in Portugal and abroad, he has received distinctions including the Stuart Carvalhais Prize, the Courrier International Public Prize, an Honourable Mention at the European Cartoon Award and First Prize in the Cartoon Competition Against Forced Labour. Over the course of his career he has collected numerous prizes and honourable mentions at festivals and competitions for cartoon, caricature and editorial illustration in Portugal and internationally.

“ My foremost purpose is to draw in the cause of freedom of expression and of peace.”