José Rafael was born in Lisbon, Portugal in 1995 and lives and works in London. He received his BA at Wimbledon College of Art in 2017, where his work was selected for the Bloomberg New Contemporaries. José completed his MA in painting at the Royal College of Art in 2021 while being the recipient of the Leverhulme Trust and the Gulbenkian Foundation Arts scholarships.
Generally small in scale, José’s paintings are often imbued with a sense of place. Drawing from literary and filmic sources, as well as his own photographs and writings, José’s work explores the relationship between the imagination and our individual and collective memories.
Solo exhibitions
Outskirts, Incubator 22, 2 Chiltern Street, London, 2022
Selected group exhibitions
Folk Calisthenics, Holdrons Arcade, 2022
Plan View, Cell Studios, London 2021
RCA 2021, Cromwell Place, London, 2021
Final, not Over – again, Unit 1 Gallery, London, 2021
Life, Love, Labour, Brixton Beneficiary, London, 2019
Open Ended Questioning, Deptford x Fringe Festival, London, 2018
RBA Rising Stars, The Framers Gallery, London, 2018
Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2017, Block336, Brixton, London, 2018
The Ingram Young Contemporary Talent Purchase Prize, The Cello Factory, London, 2017
Fully Awake, ART PARK Glasgow at House for an Art Lover, Glasgow, 2017