oMuseu, Faculdade de Belas Artes da Universidade do Porto
03.03.22 – 11.03.22
Collective exhibition
Thresholds and transitions
Meanings arise only at thresholds and in transitions, indeed, through obstacles. A child’s first experience of space is also a threshold experience. Thresholds and transitions are zones of mystery, uncertainty, transformation, death, and fear, but also of yearning, hope, and expectation. Their negativity constitutes the topology of passion.1.
Threshold
2a: GATE, DOOR
b(1): END, BOUNDARY
specifically : the end of a runway
(2): the place or point of entering or beginning : OUTSET
on the threshold of a new age
3a: the point at which a physiological or psychological effect begins to be produced
has a high threshold for pain
b: a level, point, or value above which something is true or will take place and below which it is
not or will not 2.
The three paintings presented at the exhibition „Tocar, Suspender, Cingir e Pender…“ are intended to be not just pictures, but objects. The structure of the canvas is visible. The artworks can be viewed from all sides and angles exposing the wooden strips, staples and folded cotton. The movement of the viewer and the illumination of the artworks reveal oppositions, present two sides of the same surface, a mirror reflection. The original – the copy. The matrix – the image. The positive – the negative. Light – dark. Transparent – opaque. The painted images themselves are stripped of paint. The shapes are covered only with a primer. The created planes differ almost only in the structure of their surfaces marked by the strokes of paint against the threads of raw cotton. Matt white versus sparkly glue. The three paintings are covered with various organic, almost fluid shapes. They remind me of drops of mercury that has a shiny, mirrorlike surface. They are in constant movement, changing their shapes and adjusting to their surroundings, to the container they are in, which in this case are the frames of the canvases. The artworks viewed from the side work almost as movie frames, a storyboard. They show three scenes, three elements, three stages of a transition. The image – the portal – the afterimage. The original – the mirror – the reflection.
1 Han, Byung-Chul, The Transparency Society, stanford briefs, pp. 31-32
2 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/threshold
