In Standing Up – For The Nearest Distance, Diogo Pimentão explores the presence and absence of the human body through drawing and sculpture. Among other works, the exhibition presents real-size graphite drawings of the artist’s own hands: positioned up, down, and outstretched... placed precisely where his body would be in space, leaving only an apprehension of absence. Rather than depicting the body as an autonomous subject, the work highlights graphite as both material and mark, presence and residue. The hands drawn with graphite, covered in graphite become a kind of self-contained loop where the medium represents itself. The absence of the full figure further reinforces this idea: what remains is not the body, but the material that records its movement, suggesting a shift in representation. Framed individually, each hand becomes a marker of an invisible presence, marking both presence and absence. The series originates from a moment of self-observation: hands covered in graphite, the very medium that defines much of Pimentão’s practice. By drawing his hands with the same material that stains them, the work creates a self-referential loop—a tool drawing the trace of its own use.