Encounter is pleased to present ‘Undertones’ opening on Friday 6th of February. The show reflects on the possibilities and diversity of contemporary drawing practice. Connecting for the first time the formal languages of Pimentão, Feldmeyer and Vedpathak, ‘Undertones’ brings together three distinct approaches to making in which each artist pushes the boundaries of paper through a sensitive relation to process, perception and perspective. At the core of the show is a subtle questioning of drawing’s underlying structures, an intentional testing of fixity, line and border through innovative approaches to mark making and layering. In this focussed collection of new works, residues of thoughts, actions and moments gently rise, dappling the enigmatic surfaces of the drawings which spill in and out of space and time.

For Pimentão, the materials of paper and graphite are utilised by the artist as sites of resistance and yield, setting up a dialectic between strength and precarity, power and vulnerability, the handmade and the hard-edged. Pimentão continues his investigations into an expanded field of drawing by utilising a method he calls ‘blind drawing’. There is a bodily choreography and considered action that is layered into the process of making for the artist. Often extending into space, his enigmatic works complicate boundaries between drawing and sculpture, performance and permanence. His research combines a randomness found in nature with a rigorous formal technique, built through repeated marks, lines, or strokes. The paper sheet - both structural support and subject - can be folded, knotted, raised in space, or placed on the floor. In this manner, Pimentão plays with our perception. His works ask us to look again, to question the spaces around us and how we travel through them.

Feldmeyer’s focused collection of recent works on paper extends his sensitive exploration of the poetics of space and place through material and form. ‘Undertones’ includes Upstream the largest charcoal drawing Feldmeyer has made to date. The artist has an ongoing preoccupation with the symbolic and pervasive properties of light, a formal concern with its mouldable character as both intangible yet essential matter. Daylight is made into a medium, a substance with its own haptic qualities - a tangible sense of materiality, pressure and weight. The surfaces of Feldmeyer’s restrained graphite powder drawings dance with suggestion, both opening and closing possibilities for space, leaving us unsure of where we stand and how far we can journey through these enigmatic sites of memory. An implied realism is fractured through plays with perspective and imagination, evoking a certain sense of disorientation and ungrounding. Are the shadows enveloping or retreating, is the landscape emerging through additions or erasures?

In Vedpathak’s pieces, woven grids ripple and undulate, centric seams become imprecise and once linear forms reverberate and float. The artist employs a rigorous self-developed technique she refers to as ‘plucking’, which involves separating the fibres of handmade Japanese mulberry paper using a tiny pushpin. This method, developed since 2009, produces work with an enigmatic textural, immersive and sculptural quality. There is a distinctly spiritual aspect to Vedpathak’s slow and laborious process. The artist spends hours and days working on and into her material, a slow and painstaking method which operates on a tipping point between risk and repetition. The ritualistic quality of this technique sits somewhere between meditation and obsession for Vedpathak. The meditative quality of Vedpathak’s process is evoked in

viewing the works too; each recess reads as an intricate loop in a seemingly infinite web of delicate paper. The elusive materiality of the works opens multiple possibilities, they operate on an unstable edge between painting, drawing and installation. The works’ constructions can be likened to both intricate organic structures or lace-like fabrics. Multiple threads of ideas intersperse, drawing out diverse histories of abstraction and interweaving narratives that touch on bodily trace, memory and temporality.

Undertones will run until 14th March 2026.

Neha Vedpathak (b. 1982, Pune, India) is a Detroit-based artist who creates sculptural installations and wall reliefs made from paper. Through her studio practice Vedpathak aims to broaden the dialogue and understanding of issues related to identity, spirituality and gender politics. Leading with the material and the inventive processes, she is a chronicler who weaves together inspiration and ideas from politics, feminism, and eastern philosophies. Using a self-invented technique, she calls ‘plucking’, Vedpathak spends hundreds of hours separating the fibers of handmade Japanese paper with a small pin. Vedpathak’s work has gained significant institutional recognition with a recent solo exhibition, ‘Time (Constant, Suspended, Collapsed)’ at Flint Institute of Arts, Michigan and an upcoming show ‘Subtleism: Neha Vedpathak with Agnes Martin’ at Cranbrook Art Museum, Michigan. Her work, ‘Still I Rise’ forms part of the permanent collection of Detroit Institute of Fine Arts and currently hangs in their new gallery of Indian and Southeast Asian art.

Upcoming and recent solo exhibitions include; ‘Subtleism – Neha Vedpathak with Agnes Martin’, Cranbrook Art Museum, Michigan (2024), ‘Neha Vedpathak - Ideally Imprecise’, Encounter, Lisbon (2024), ‘Neha Vedpathak: Creative Force,’ David Klein, Detroit (2023), ‘Neha Vedpathak: I Dwell in Possibility,’ Sundaram Tagore, Singapore (2022),‘ Neha Vedpathak - Time (Constant, Suspended, Collapsed’, Flint Art Museum, Michigan (2021), ‘Surface Rhythms’, Sundaram Tagore Gallery, New York (2020), ‘Into the Woods’, Simone De Sousa Gallery, Detroit (2020), ‘Many Moons, Same Sky’, Simone De Sousa Gallery, Detroit (2019), ‘Of the Land’, N'Namdi Center for Contemporary, Detroit (2018), ‘Bhabha’, The Poetry Foundation, Chicago (2016), ‘The Space Between’, N’Namdi Contemporary, Miami (2013), ‘Neha Vedpathak’, One Prudential Plaza, Chicago (2012).

Recent group exhibitions include; 'Into the Abstract', Elizabeth de C. Wilson Museum, Vermont, US (2025), ‘Sense of Materiality’, Sundaram Tagore, London (2023), ‘Artist Rooms’, Encounter, Lisbon (2023), ‘Invisible Threads’ Baker Art Museum, Florida (2022), ‘Fermata’ Encounter, London (2022), ‘Emerge’ National Indo American Museum, Lombard (2021), ‘What Remains’, Encounter, London, (2021), ‘Alterations, Activation, Abstraction’, Sundaram Tagore Gallery, New York (2019), ‘Edition 18’, Simone De Sousa Gallery, Detroit (2018), ‘Art on Paper’, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro (2017), ‘Transformation’ (performance), Arizona State University Museum, Arizona (2016).

Vedpathak’s work can be found in important public and private collections internationally including; Detroit Institute of Art, US Embassy Hyderabad, Progressive Art Collection, Camac Art Centre, Czech Academy of Sciences, Bharat Bhavan Arts Center, Madhya Pradesh State Art Museum, Anderson Ranch Arts Centre.

Read Artist Interview: 'Ideally Imprecise: Neha Vedpathak in conversation with Alexander Caspari'

Diogo Pimentão (Lisbon, 1973) lives and works in London. He studied art at Ar.Co., Lisbon; the Sculpture Seminar, Gotland, and the Centro Internacional de Escultura Pêro Pinheiro in Portugal. The practice of drawing, especially using graphite, is the central axis of his work. He conceives it as a form of contact between a material and a support through a repetitive gesture, sometimes blind or procedural, but he also frequently employs cement, often in tension with paper. His research combines randomness with a rigorous technique, through traces and marks, lines, or strokes. The sheet can be folded, raised in space, or placed on the floor.

Recent and upcoming solo exhibitions include; ‘Transient Force Of Things’ Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian, Lisbon (2026, upcoming), ‘Proportions of Silence’, Encounter, Lisbon (2024), ‘Extended Touch’ Praz Delavallade, Paris (2023), ‘To Be Completed/ Por Completar’, Casa da Cerca Art Centre, Almada (2022), ‘Transitions Linéaire’, Drawing House, Paris (2022), ‘Drawing Backwards’, FRAC Rouen Normadie (2020), ‘Loud Whisper’, Rocio Santa Cruz, Barcelona (2019), ‘Drawing Body’, Cristina Guerra, Lisbon (2019), ‘Drawn Towards’, Kentler International Drawing Space, New York (2019), ‘Insignificantes’, Museu Nacional Grão Vasco, Viseu (2016), Disequilibrium Displacement, IMMA - Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2015). ‘Residual’, Museu de Arte Contemporânea - Colecção António Cachola, Elvas (2015).

Diogo Pimentão’s works can be found in important public and private collections worldwide including: Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, FR; Serralves Foundation, Porto, PT; Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, PT; MONA, Museum of Old and New Art, AU; Fonds National d’Art Contemporain, Paris, FR; Pomeranz Collection, Vienna, AU; European Central Bank, Berlin, DE; Collection Lambert, Avignon, FR; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, IT; Thalie Foundation, Brussels, BE; Carmona e Costa Foundation, Lisbon, PT; Portugal Telecom Foundation, Lisbon, PT; Joann Gonzalez Hickey Collection, New York, US; Fonds National d’At Contemporain, Paris, FR; PLMJ Foundation, Lisbon, PT; Kablanc Otazu Foundation, Pamplona, ES; EDP Foundation, Lisbon, PT; Museum of Contemporary Art - António Cachola Collection, Elvas, PT; Museu de Arte Contemporânea Armando Martins, Lisbon, PT; FRAC Alsace, Sélestat, FR; Leal Rios Foundation, Lisbon Portugal PT; Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg, AU; FRAC Normandie, Rouen, FR.

Diogo Pimentão at Encounter

Nicolas Feldmeyer (b. 1980) was born in Switzerland and lives and works in London. After completing an MSc in Architecture in Zurich he went on to study Fine Arts at the San Francisco Art Institute on a Fulbright Grant. Feldmeyer received an MFA with distinction from the Slade in 2012. His work has been awarded the Saatchi and Channel 4’s New Sensations First Prize 2012 and the William Coldstream Prize amongst others.

Feldmeyer has regularly exhibited at important galleries and institutions internationally. Recent solo exhibitions include; ‘Shadows Hold Their Breath’, Encounter, Lisbon (2025), ‘Terrain Vague’, Encounter, Lisbon (2023), ‘Fading Light’, Encounter, Online (2020), ‘Beacon’, Hammersmith and Fulham Townhall, London (2018), ‘Towards the Horizon’, Fano Island, Denmark (2016), ‘Lacunae’, Lacuna Project Space, London (2015), ‘Subliminal Spaces’, Maddox Arts, London (2015), ‘Nicolas Feldmeyer’, MC2 Gallery, Milan (2014), ‘Untitled (Crypt)’, Christchurch Spitalfields London (2011). Selected group exhibitions include; ‘Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize’, Falmouth Art Gallery, Cornwall (2025), ‘Passages’, Encounter, Lisbon (2024), ‘Open’, Royal Watercolour Society, London (2024), ‘Highlights’, Encounter, London, 2023, ‘RSA Annual Exhibition’, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh (2022), ‘Fermata’, Encounter, London (2021), ‘What Remains’, Encounter, London (2021), ‘Drawing Postal Project, Camberwell College, London (2021), ‘Photo London’, Encounter, Online (2020), ‘Shapes in Clouds’, Encounter, London (2020), ‘Everything Must Go’, Assembly Point, London (2019), ‘Photographs’, Sotheby’s, London (2019), ‘Border Lines’, Maddox Arts, London (2019), ‘5 Trillion Times’, China Academy of Art, Hangzhou (2018), ‘Aesthetica Art Prize’, York Art Museum, York (2018), ‘Art of the Postcard’, Handel Street Projects, London (2017), ‘No Lemon, No Melon’ Flowers Gallery, New York (2017), Artist Rooms, Encounter, London (2017), ‘Right Through You’, Koppel Project, London (2017), ‘Perfectionism’, Griffin Gallery, London (2015), ‘Lumen Prize’, New York Institute of Technology, New York (2014), ‘Hacking Spaces’, Bosse and Baum, London (2014), ‘Fresh Faced and Wild Eyed’, The Photographers Gallery, London (2013), ‘Saatchi Gallery and Channel 4 New Sensations’, Victoria House, London (2012). Feldmeyer is a guest lecturer at the AA School of Architecture, The CASS, Metropolitan University, and is Associate Lecturer at Camberwell College, University of the Arts London.

His work is included in numerous public and private collections worldwide including The Victoria and Albert Museum, The British Museum, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, UCL Art Museum, Panoptes Collection, Sellar Property and British Land, MACAM Museu de Arte Contemporânea Armando Martins.

Nicolas Feldmeyer at Encounter

Undertones

Nicolas Feldmeyer | Diogo Pimentão | Neha Vedpathak