Exhibitions
Beatriz Capitulé's Scientific Friction in ZDB
Beatriz Capitulé's work is characterized by a constant dialogue between the material and the conceptual, between the immediacy of drawing and the density of painting, transforming it into a visual record that questions both the intimate and the collective. Her name is beginning to resonate strongly on the international art scene, positioning her as a creator to watch in the coming years.
Born in 1998 in Azeitão, Portugal, and currently living in Lisbon, Beatriz Capitulé is establishing herself as one of the most interesting emerging artists on the Portuguese contemporary scene. Trained in Performing Arts with a specialization in painting, construction, and set design at Rose Bruford College in London (2021), she also completed studies in Drawing and Painting at ARCO (Lisbon) and Graphic Design at the Escola Artística António Arroio.
Her exhibition career is already extensive for her youth. She has presented solo and binary projects such as Barroco Tropical with Francisco Couto at the Kulturzentrum Pavillon (Hannover, 2022) and La Celva at Inusual Project (Barcelona, 2022). She has also been part of relevant collective exhibitions such as SINGSONG at the Galeria Zé dos Bois (Lisbon, 2024), Corrente de Ar at the Beato Innovation District, and Blind Taste at ARBAG (Lisbon).
In 2025, Capitulé presents her new exhibition, Scientific Friction, at Zé dos Bois (Lisbon), curated by João Reis, which will be on view until September 6. The artist explores the notion of stroke and recording, playing with the relationship between line and texture through layers of graphite, marker, digital printing, and wool. The resulting works function as traces of time, pressure, and artistic gestures themselves.
"First comes the drawing, on paper and graphite, sometimes with marker or ballpoint pen, then digital manipulation, printed acetate, rear projection, redesign on canvas with dozens of permanent markers, and finally, the texture of wool, pressed onto the canvas. Scientific friction is a balance between intention and accident, the interval between the chosen line and the one superimposed on the previous one. The lines do what they want. One pushes the other, which pushes the other—they betray the source." Beatriz Capitulé
A proposal that transforms space into a visual laboratory where line, matter, and accident coexist in constant tension. The exhibition is presented as an unfolding catastrophe, a landscape in transformation that invites us to consider the image not as a finished product, but as a living and unstable entity. Each stroke opens the possibility of a fracture, an unexpected detour, a new direction.
In terms of technique, the exhibition displays a layered and patient process: initial drawings on paper in graphite, marker, or ballpoint pen are digitally transformed, reproduced on acetate, and reworked on canvas with multiple layers of permanent ink. Adding to this interweaving is the organic texture of the wool, which introduces a physical and tactile register to the surface.
The result is a kind of artistic geology, where the layers of material function as traces of time and pressure. The work becomes a map of processes, a visual archive that oscillates between the controlled and the accidental. Capitulé does not seek to represent a recognizable motif, but rather to show how the image can fracture, reinvent itself, and expand in multiple directions. With Scientific Friction, Zé dos Bois reaffirms its role as a platform for a generation of artists who, like Beatriz Capitulé, explore matter and time as a territory of creation.
