1. What aspects does this artwork integrate (formally, plastically, or conceptually )?

The work cross-pollinates both writing and painting, adding to each the very opposite conditions that prevail in the other's tradition. Painting with text software articulates notions of the expanded mediums, although the work is not encountered as text work or a (hand) painted piece it seemingly replaces these within a circularity that questions the "genre" of the object as to what it is as a subject.

2. Where is it embedded? (what was the genesis of the making, the milieu, the causality)

"Word Paintings" is a series developed with a home inkjet printer, making use of a word processing software. I started this work at a time when a studio was not available to me. Through necessity, the printer and the home computer became the studio and the software became the medium. Scarcity became the model that gave rise to an array of different works. Paintings, drawings and text work emerged from this circumstance, what was a defect became a surplus.

This edition is done by inserting a pattern and colour into a word document and ordering the machine to print a series of papers with it. These commands are then repeated and the paper overprinted, until i decide its finished.

The edition has of course, variances from one work to another although the procedures are always the same for each edition.

3. What questions or Action does it pose?

This series questions 2 points that are transversal to my research.

1. Scarcity of means - what are the necessary minimums for work to emerge?

2. What is painting ? Where are the boundaries to what a painting can be? Can expanded modes of thinking and practicing inside what we understand as something else than painting still be considered as painting; when the rationale behind the work articulates the circumstantial nature of contemporary painting and its History?

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The "Word Paintings" series is a component of the artist's decade-long exploration, during which he has harnessed Microsoft Office Word software for drawing and painting. Despite the inherent limitations of this tool, the artist adeptly employs it to convey his research. The process involves a combination of overprinting techniques and hands-on manipulation of a home printer. This has given rise to several distinct series, including "Word Drawings," "Word Paintings," "Word Files," and an artist publication titled "Word Documents."

Tiago Duarte (Portugal, 1979) lives and works in Lisbon. He holds a Master of Fine Arts from the Manchester School of Art, was a researcher at the University of Sint Lucas in Antwerp in 2015, and attended the Maumaus International Study Programme in Lisbon in 2018. His artistic practice utilizes the inherent limitations of mechanical, labor, and technological processes, transgressing notions of automation, editing, and seriality.

Among his most recent solo exhibitions are: "We are Bored in the City," Tiago Duarte & Cel Cabreels, Red Herring Salon, Antwerp (2023), supported by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation; "Office Work," Irmã Feia, Almada, Portugal (2022) - exhibition text by Nuno Sacramento; and "We Disappear," Ltd Ink Corporation, Edinburgh, UK, 2020, curated by Caustic Coastal.