Entanglements I-VI

Inês Zenha’s (b. 1995, Lisbon) multidisciplinary practice spans installation, painting, sculpture, and ceramics, forming a profound exploration of the queer body’s formal and conceptual representations. Her work examines a body burdened by hetero-patriarchal constructs, striving toward liberation and the creation of a new self-defined ontology.

Entanglements, comprising six paintings commissioned for the exhibition “Liquid Intelligence,” curated by Chus Martínez at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid in 2023, evokes intimate, almost ritualistic scenes that intertwine nature and queer identities. Zenha envisions a world where air transforms into water, suggesting that the virtues and transformative forces guiding humanity’s future stem from the ocean. Through an interplay of scale and color, these works delve into themes of love and spirituality, redefining love to encompass community, family, and self-love as essential facets of queer identity. The paintings reclaim a spiritual essence found within the self, presenting bodies immersed in watery landscapes—partially or fully submerged—seemingly levitating in this utopian aquatic realm.

The series unfolds in a monochromatic universe dominated by blue. Traditionally associated with masculinity, authority, and divinity, Zenha reclaims the color to signify vulnerability and femininity, subverting its conventional symbolism. Each painting can be read bidirectionally, with figures entering or exiting the aquatic space, embracing the journey toward transformation and ease in this envisioned world.