Julião Sarmento in conversation

Portuguese artist Julião Sarmento draws upon themes of memory, sexuality, transgression, morality and duality. He works across painting, collage, drawing, sculpture and film to deploy a concise vocabulary of images exploring ambiguity, incomplete narratives and the nature of desire. Influenced by Georges Bataille’s exploration of sexual desire through symbols and fragments of the unconscious, his works currently on display at Tate Modern present a visual interpretation of Bataille’s Eroticism (1957), which examines taboo, the erotic impulse and the relationship between death and eroticism.