Sculptor of Iron and Existential Form
Rui Chafes (b. 1966, Lisbon) is a leading figure in contemporary sculpture, known for his ethereal, black-painted iron works that evoke themes of transcendence, solitude, and the metaphysical. After graduating in Sculpture from the Faculdade de Belas-Artes in Lisbon in 1989, he studied under Gerhard Merz at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (1990–1992), where he translated Novalis’ Fragments into Portuguese, deepening his engagement with German Romanticism and its aesthetics of longing and introspection. Chafes’ sculptures, often large-scale, abstract, and organically shaped, are forged from iron sheets, folded and painted to appear weightless despite their material density. His works explore dualities such as lightness and heaviness, presence and absence, body and spirit, often installed in dialogue with architectural or natural settings.
