He has exhibited regularly since 1981, and held his first solo exhibition in 1983 at the Diário de Notícias Gallery. His training with Cutileiro would be a determining factor in the development of his work. From his earliest works, the absence and presence of death have appeared with references to tombs, a feature which he has maintained over the course of his career. It was in this early phase that he created series of stone sculptures from industrial waste.

In 1981, he participated in the Évora Sculpture Symposium, where he created his first outdoor piece; this would be a defining moment in understanding the complexity of public sculpture, which he still produces.

From 1988 onwards, his first bronze and cast iron sculptures appeared – stone no longer being his preferred material – and Croft then went on to create pieces from constructions, utilising pre-existing, disused objects and recontextualising them.

In 1986, Croft started working with the EMI – Valentim de Carvalho Gallery, which led to him exhibiting for the first time in Spain, Switzerland and Belgium. In 1987, he participated in the São Paulo Art Biennial and since then he has regularly exhibited in Brazilian galleries and museums.

In 1991, he started printmaking which, along with drawing, would come to have the same importance as sculpture: different media, through which his work moves without hierarchy. He creates large pieces where the scale of the body and architectonic relationships are ever present.

The Belém Cultural Centre organised an exhibition of his work from 1979 to 2002, titled ‘Retrospective’.

In 2007, he held the Paisagem Interior [Inner Landscape] exhibition in the foyer of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Museum to celebrate the Foundation’s 50th year. More recently, in 2009, he exhibited at the Filomena Soares Gallery, which currently represents his work in Portugal. In 2012, he showed Dois Desenhos, uma Escultura [Two Drawings, One Sculpture] at the Appleton Square Gallery and, in Spain, Proceso estacionario [Stationary Process] at the Helga de Alvear Gallery in Madrid. Earlier in 2013, he exhibited Tres Puntos no alineados [Three Unaligned Points], Sala Palexco, Coruña, Spain, and Anotaciones al vacío [Notes on the void], at the Proyecto Paralelo Gallery in Mexico City.

João Silvério

April 2013