OLD HABITS by Albert Tannat

The individual exhibition OLD HABITS by Albert Tannat will open on June 13, from 4 pm. to 7 pm.
The exhibition will be on display until July 5 and the admission is free.

Old Habits stems from Albert Tannat’s childhood memories, shaped in a decaying Porto between the late 1980s and early 1990s. An urban center marked by abandoned buildings, dark streets, visible heroin use, normalized prostitution, and popular neighborhood dances — a setting of contrasts between decay and vitality.

The works in this exhibition explore unstable bonds linked to parenthood experienced during this period. Addiction, affection, separation, freedom, and escape emerge as contradictory forces shaping the artist’s intimate universe.

The horse, a recurring image, functions as a metaphor for tension and ambivalence — between strength and fragility, fall and flight.

Munch, Paula Rego, Lucian Freud, and Franz Marc are direct references, as is Expressionism. The exhibition includes personal reinterpretations of works by Rego and Munch, through a raw and emotional visual language.

Known for his intense colors, Tannat here opts for pastel tones, creating a visual contrast with the dense themes he addresses. Old Habits is an attempt to give form to what remains — transforming the past into image.

Text by Mariana Frazão

BIOGRAPHY

Albert Tannat is a self-taught artist with a raw and expressive vision of art. His work is influenced by Art Brut, Naïf Art and Outsider Art, drawing inspiration from marginal spaces and underground realities. Through visceral and direct painting, Tannat explores the intensity of human existence, capturing primal emotions with energetic strokes and a vibrant palette.

His spontaneous, non-academic approach gives him total freedom in constructing images that evoke the instinctive, the dreamlike and the chaotic. Each of his pieces is a universe of its own, where rawness and sensitivity coexist, challenging the conventional structures of art and offering a unique look at the human in its purest state.

In addition to his pictorial work, A. Tannat expands his artistic expression to the world of sound, joining the Porto band Sereias, where he explores new musical textures and atmospheres. At the same time, he collaborates with DJ Urânio in a performative, apocalyptic and post-aesthetic show, creating immersive experiences that challenge the boundaries between visual and performing arts.