Against the sky
Luisa Duarte - 2009
In one, they resemble lamps lined up and hanging in the air. In another, a shining green traffic light. There is one that seems to reveal a triangle resembling an illuminated circus marquee or, if we look harder, we can see a constellation further away. Common to them all, there are lights against the sky, which may be of the morning, the late afternoon, or pitch black, which occurs when the moon is new, opening up space for the stars.
Taking one’s time to observe the relation of the lights against the sky, or making use of a photograph that reveals such an image, represents the first moment of most of the paintings gathered in the Patrícia Leite exhibition. Despite the figuration in their beaches, sands, seas, rocks, marquees and skies, the artist’s work brings with it a credible dose of abstraction. These real elements emerge before as masses of colour. And so it is the composition between the colours that enables us to see such recognisable elements in reality. We can identify a sea, a stretch of sand or a series of lamps, but more by virtue of our ability and inclination to give figure to that which is almost abstract than by an already given figuration. While photography is often the main reference of these paintings, one can note the inversion processed by the artist. From the photographic reality a painting emerges that, although figurative, is traversed by a dose of abstraction, bringing a density that instigates the eye to make an abstract decomposition and figurative construction at the same time.
If we assert that in these paintings a mountain or a piece of the sea is constructed not so much by precise features, but more by the composition of chromatic spaces, it becomes possible to perceive the importance of this element in the artist’s oeuvre. It is, to a large extent, the colour itself, a matter which when seen isolated can have merely formal attributes, which will point to significant layers in the artist’s work. Faced with Patricia’s paintings, one must know how to see and feel the colours, to then cognize them.
Let us look at some specific pieces. In “Lâmpadas III”, one can see a dark blood red which reveals a somewhat formless triangular shape; a series of small white circles in line reminds one of hanging lights; in the background the sky is already darkening, it is neither midday, nor midnight. In the top right corner of the composition we can see a layer of black which is difficult to be figured. This blackness could gain the connotation of a stretch of mountains should we look at the piece “Lona Acesa”, in which we can see the marquee which could be of a circus and a mountain range in the background. A kind of synthesis of the two paintings, “Lâmpadas II” shows but only the small white lamps suspended against the blue sky. If we carry out an experiment of leaving the gallery in darkness, we can see that light will shine from the white circles. It is the white that shines. At the beginning of the painting process, the artist paints all the wood white, and then colours in the surrounding, leaving the circles in the original white. When all the rest has been filled with other colours, the lamps/circles/whites light up.
The luminosity that bursts from the colours is present in almost all the artist’s work. In other words, the theme and representation are of less interest here, it is rather the chromatic work and composition made on the canvas that are significant, as well as luminosity present in the colour itself and the meanings and sensations that this luminosity can provoke. The light/colour relation against the sky is the common denominator to be caught by our eye before these paintings.
While the end of the afternoon, in the dusky twilight, a kind of void between day and night, when the cicadas sing and the street lights turn on, evokes a melancholic feeling, the blue of midday in the panel “Sinal” breathes assertion and vitality. As if the sunny sky were not enough, there is the green light, as if saying yes in unisson with life and the time of day which accompanies it.
The exhibition also contains the small marinas which form the series entitled “Arpoador”. The scale is smaller here, asking the spectator to come closer. In these small paintings one can clearly see some aspects which interlace lots of the artist’s works. Although they are views of a beach, one can notice an urban and far-from naïve vision of nature. The pallette has very little chromatic variation, and no shaded areas. Sand, vegetation, spume and sea are on one single plane, without perspective. Our eye does not dwell, but rather wonders over a field where economy and not excess calls the shots.
Against the tide of superlatives that dominate everyday life and on the opposite path to the rush instilled by a world which demands that people march onwards in search of who-knows-what, Patricia Leite’s work gives rise to another rhythm that in turn asks us to look with a new view. Even with the intense light that bursts therefrom, her work does not shout, its match is that of a haughty discretion. Patricia’s paintings, in my opinion, always arose like the incarnate evoking of another space and time, the possibility, in the midst of the chaos in which we live our daily lives, of establishing a pause, a suspension through the pitch black dotted with white with a lavender line underneath. This restoration of a kind of hope or the establishment of another mode of being in the world, albeit brief, are aspects related to art and that the encounter with this artist’s work grants us. Dwelling on their skies or their marinas is making time dance, instead of march onwards.
Luisa Duarte - 2009
In one, they resemble lamps lined up and hanging in the air. In another, a shining green traffic light. There is one that seems to reveal a triangle resembling an illuminated circus marquee or, if we look harder, we can see a constellation further away. Common to them all, there are lights against the sky, which may be of the morning, the late afternoon, or pitch black, which occurs when the moon is new, opening up space for the stars.
Taking one’s time to observe the relation of the lights against the sky, or making use of a photograph that reveals such an image, represents the first moment of most of the paintings gathered in the Patrícia Leite exhibition. Despite the figuration in their beaches, sands, seas, rocks, marquees and skies, the artist’s work brings with it a credible dose of abstraction. These real elements emerge before as masses of colour. And so it is the composition between the colours that enables us to see such recognisable elements in reality. We can identify a sea, a stretch of sand or a series of lamps, but more by virtue of our ability and inclination to give figure to that which is almost abstract than by an already given figuration. While photography is often the main reference of these paintings, one can note the inversion processed by the artist. From the photographic reality a painting emerges that, although figurative, is traversed by a dose of abstraction, bringing a density that instigates the eye to make an abstract decomposition and figurative construction at the same time.
If we assert that in these paintings a mountain or a piece of the sea is constructed not so much by precise features, but more by the composition of chromatic spaces, it becomes possible to perceive the importance of this element in the artist’s oeuvre. It is, to a large extent, the colour itself, a matter which when seen isolated can have merely formal attributes, which will point to significant layers in the artist’s work. Faced with Patricia’s paintings, one must know how to see and feel the colours, to then cognize them.
Let us look at some specific pieces. In “Lâmpadas III”, one can see a dark blood red which reveals a somewhat formless triangular shape; a series of small white circles in line reminds one of hanging lights; in the background the sky is already darkening, it is neither midday, nor midnight. In the top right corner of the composition we can see a layer of black which is difficult to be figured. This blackness could gain the connotation of a stretch of mountains should we look at the piece “Lona Acesa”, in which we can see the marquee which could be of a circus and a mountain range in the background. A kind of synthesis of the two paintings, “Lâmpadas II” shows but only the small white lamps suspended against the blue sky. If we carry out an experiment of leaving the gallery in darkness, we can see that light will shine from the white circles. It is the white that shines. At the beginning of the painting process, the artist paints all the wood white, and then colours in the surrounding, leaving the circles in the original white. When all the rest has been filled with other colours, the lamps/circles/whites light up.
The luminosity that bursts from the colours is present in almost all the artist’s work. In other words, the theme and representation are of less interest here, it is rather the chromatic work and composition made on the canvas that are significant, as well as luminosity present in the colour itself and the meanings and sensations that this luminosity can provoke. The light/colour relation against the sky is the common denominator to be caught by our eye before these paintings.
While the end of the afternoon, in the dusky twilight, a kind of void between day and night, when the cicadas sing and the street lights turn on, evokes a melancholic feeling, the blue of midday in the panel “Sinal” breathes assertion and vitality. As if the sunny sky were not enough, there is the green light, as if saying yes in unisson with life and the time of day which accompanies it.
The exhibition also contains the small marinas which form the series entitled “Arpoador”. The scale is smaller here, asking the spectator to come closer. In these small paintings one can clearly see some aspects which interlace lots of the artist’s works. Although they are views of a beach, one can notice an urban and far-from naïve vision of nature. The pallette has very little chromatic variation, and no shaded areas. Sand, vegetation, spume and sea are on one single plane, without perspective. Our eye does not dwell, but rather wonders over a field where economy and not excess calls the shots.
Against the tide of superlatives that dominate everyday life and on the opposite path to the rush instilled by a world which demands that people march onwards in search of who-knows-what, Patricia Leite’s work gives rise to another rhythm that in turn asks us to look with a new view. Even with the intense light that bursts therefrom, her work does not shout, its match is that of a haughty discretion. Patricia’s paintings, in my opinion, always arose like the incarnate evoking of another space and time, the possibility, in the midst of the chaos in which we live our daily lives, of establishing a pause, a suspension through the pitch black dotted with white with a lavender line underneath. This restoration of a kind of hope or the establishment of another mode of being in the world, albeit brief, are aspects related to art and that the encounter with this artist’s work grants us. Dwelling on their skies or their marinas is making time dance, instead of march onwards.
