"Untitled, 2021"

José Pedro Croft is one of the most prominent Portuguese contemporary artists today. Born in Porto in 1957, he studied painting at ESBAL (Lisbon University Faculty of Fine Arts) where he trained in sculpture under João Cutileiro.

He lives and works in Lisbon. He has been exhibiting regularly since 1980. With a vast portfolio, his work interlinks, with equal importance, design, engraving and sculpture.

His pieces are to be found all over the world in museums, galleries and private and institutional collections such as the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Berardo Museum, EDP Foundation, Ministry of Culture, in Lisbon, Serralves Foundation in Porto, Helga de Alvear Museum of Contemporary Art, Cáceres, Caixa Galicia Foundation in La Coruña, Queen Sofia National Museum Centre (MNAC) in Madrid, the Santander and Calabria Contemporary and Modern Art Museum, Santander, the Rio de Janeiro Modern Art Museum (MAM), Pinacoteca of São Paulo State, European Central Bank, Frankfurt and the Sammlung Albertina in Austria.

In 2017, José Pedro Croft represented Portugal at the Venice Art Biennal.

"This work is about issues of geometry, how they order the world, creating a nature, other, lanscapes. A monumental construction, colour planes in fragile balances, and imminent collapse."

José Pedro Croft

The work that Croft conceived for Regent’s Park in 2021 is a colossal set of six panes of painted iron (four) and glass (two) that articulate as a huge portico through which one can wander. The set of panes painted in white, red, orange, blue and green alternate in mate and glossy surfaces, complexifying the effect of filters and light reflections provided by the glass panes, which are colored as well.

The set rests on a steel structure, a rail that unifies the assembly and makes it float over the ground, as if its weight were irrelevant when faced with another subject: colour.