Zoom: III Movement
2017
Pátria – arte.arquitectura.design • Lisbon
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It should be clear to anyone who knows about it, but for a layman – and one not gifted in these arts – it is almost revealing. Verifying that it is through the thickening of shadows that light is revealed. Layer upon layer. Stroke after stroke, the creasing of graphite or dark paint pushes the shapes to stand out, the creased paths of a vein, the beating of a gesture that is never the same.
«It’s done now, isn’t it?», I ask, like a wizard’s apprentice “à la minuta”. João smiles, as he always does, and answers with a somewhat evasive reply… «I’m not done yet». The final result confirms this attention to the contrasts that define the sharp lines and provide realism to each marking, suddenly materialized in detail that helps defining the surrounding scene.
This attention, taken to the point where you can almost see the breathing through each pore of the skin, is now the centerpiece of this most recent collection of canvases. A deep dive in color, initially, but also the transition to a more secret level, in which the concrete elements are but vast textures, a small ripple gains volume in an immense dark crater, what used to be precision is now a chaos of concurrent lines and a plain of indefinite grain.
João Freire stepped into the close up to better capture that which is not usually present. Or that which can only be seen when one has the time to see properly. A dynamic ZOOM, as a function of distance, of farness that is shortened with every step, dramatically changing the perception of each mutant gesture (turning any of these artworks by 90° adds an entirely new variable to the interpretation) in this new individual exhibition. The III Movement of an adventure that transforms reality to achieve desire.
António Diegues Ramos
Translation by Nuno Beleza Freire
