Foco is pleased to propose, for its fifth participation, a dialogue between four artists represented by the gallery: Maria Appleton, Manuel Tainha, Francisco Trêpa, and Márcio Vilela. Each brings a distinct perspective and methodology, yet their works resonate in subtle ways, generating a reflection on material, perception, and nature

At opposite sides of the stand, the works of Appleton and Tainha appear to face each other. Both use textiles, but in radically different manners. Appleton’s practice explores the intersections of color, form, and spatial perception through dyeing, weaving, and screen printing. She investigates the subjectivity embedded in urban systems and the relationship between textile structures and light, often creating layered chromatic compositions on cotton, silk, and industrial fabrics. The works presented in Madrid form part of her exhibition What Holds the Structure. The title both asks and declares that behind all things (even behind structure itself) lies something that holds reality in a chaotic balance: elusive to comprehension yet tangible to touch. By contrast, Manuel Tainha examines the very conditions of composition, exploring addition and subtraction, as well as the tension between surface and object. His work is rooted in the cultural significance of materials, the limits of constraint, and the violence implicit in creation. Themes of domesticity also emerge, situating his practice in a space where matter and gesture continuously negotiate with each other.

The booth also addresses the question of nature, through the works of Francisco Trêpa and Márcio Vilela. Trêpa, who recently inaugurated a solo show at the CAM Gulbenkian, develops a practice defined by a restless relationship with matter. Plastic and imaginative elements generate universes in constant metamorphosis, offering reflections on landscapes, dreams, and the instability of material. Through what might be described as a baroque sci-fi aesthetic, he merges ornate sensibilities with speculative thought, questioning binaries between nature and artifice, order and chaos, permanence and dissolution. Vilela, on the other hand, approaches nature as encounter. His photographic series Superflora, produced in the forests around Recife, documents one of the last remnants of the Atlantic Forest. The series speaks of discoveries while walking in the forest, of niches that appear and vanish with shifting, theatrical light. For the artist, the objects themselves reveal their presence, granting permission to be photographed. His work highlights a poetics of attention and reciprocity, where photography becomes an act of listening rather than capture.