{"id":558,"date":"2017-11-21T10:07:36","date_gmt":"2017-11-21T10:07:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/catarinapintoleite.com\/?p=558"},"modified":"2019-03-07T20:08:24","modified_gmt":"2019-03-07T20:08:24","slug":"o-sotao","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.catarinapintoleite.com\/en\/o-sotao\/","title":{"rendered":"Attic 2017<\/span>"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"“I distribute these images<\/em>
\nIn front of me, as if upon a terrace. Around the edge of the porch,<\/em>
\nthe light with its enormous weight slips into moats. (\u2026)<\/em>
\nIt is not possible to mark out the space<\/em>
\nwhere I am. I was here and on the horizon. With lips<\/em>
\ncurved<\/em>
\nharvesting the bitter grains, and with a head<\/em>
\nupon the dais. I reigned over the essence of things,<\/em>
\nin my foreign presence, as I now understand<\/em>
\nthat I am in possession of complete data about<\/em>
\nvague beings.<\/em>
\nThe smoky colors, the indecision of my place.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hidden, the memory of landscapes painted throughout many years opens the space between
\nthe lines of earth or the horizons which snake through the page, dividing it in a severe, yet
\nvital, manner: severe because it has become minimal and elementary; alive, because it is
\norganic, decided and decisive in its topographic inscription. The suspension of the places in the
\nupper, center or lower portion of the page determines the interior tonality which is delivered
\nto the gaze: floating, in perspective, or seeking some ground, respectively.<\/p>\n

This is the first relational device we are presented with. It informs us about the surrounding
\nareas, about the origin of the traces, but above all it asks us for differentiated and alternating
\nways of receptivity \u2014 we do not feel in the same fashion the elevation, the projection, the
\nslope, the interruption, the whirling, the cornered plane, the prolonging or the small notation.
\nWe do not pass unscathed from the open space to the geometric perimeter, from the straight
\nto the sinuous line, from the elevation to the spiral, from the rib and from the
\nanthropomorphic curve to the column and to the piece of wall, from the free gesture to the
\ndisciplined enclosure.<\/p>\n

A large graphite drawing maps the vocabularic development of this series: the distillation of
\nforms she pursues, and the restraint with which she uses the surface of the paper, both
\ncontribute to maintain expressive freedom, informality, sequence, and filling. This is the
\nmatrix, hardened perhaps by the simple black color of the pencil, of the large drawings in
\n1 Fiama Hasse Pais Brand\u00e3o \u00abAs Cores de que se comp\u00f5e a sebe desalinhada\u00bb, in \u00c1rea Branca, Lisbon:
\nEditora Arc\u00e1dia, 1978.<\/p>\n

which she works with dry colored pastels and in which the color liquefies those schematics,
\nsoftens the coordinates of place, transforming them into tenuous stains, almost transparent, a
\nthin skin on top of the tactile call of the paper, an appeasement.<\/p>\n

The attic of a studio is forcefully the attic of a childhood, a place taken from fantasy and of the
\n\u201cstraightening up\u201d of memory in which each roof tile or wooden brace, each aged floorboard
\nor visible fault is elevated to the condition of a clue, a secret mobilizer, pregnant with meaning.
\nIn the case of the artist, the archetypal attic coincides with the real attic, that which the studio
\nreally is or contains within, in a happy juxtaposition of circumstances: the spaces, the hidden
\nceilings and corners, the skylight, the floating lines and the inclined planes, the zones of
\nshadow and of light, the small imperfections are a shelter, circumscription, surprise, defense,
\nprospection, contamination and real referent, but also a formal alphabet, a thermal and
\nchromatic suggestion, an imaginary impregnation.<\/p>\n

The path drawn by the lines inhabits our gaze, they live in the body of our gestures and of the
\nchimera that draws the line, that stains (or cleans!) the paper as sensitively as these drawings,
\nbig and small, tell us.<\/p>\n

The rough stone from which one extracts that which will be precious figures, as a hypothesis,
\nanother metaphoric area of this work: perhaps it would assist us in understanding the forms
\nwhich tend to be square or round, and which close and fill, which rectify, which remove them
\nfrom the space and from any chance of \u201clandscape.\u201d Their condition is radically abstract, the
\nblack light encircles them or fills them, and their mass resolutely densifies their energetic
\npotential. The future of an unhewn stone is difficult to be signaled with clarity and we do not
\nknow what is to be, what of it is inscribed in the \u201cblocks\u201d she draws for us.<\/p>\n

The narrow beam of yellow light that crosses one of them has its origin in the spring that
\nappears to rise up from behind the houses and is a mountain, or a whale\u2019s dorsal fin, a giant
\nwave, or just the sun. Whenever they are interior, the spaces open their secret atmosphere to
\na dissolution of borders which exposes them to unexpected narratives, to burns, to low clouds,
\nfractures and fragmentation, but also to challenging isomorphisms, skeins in motion, currents
\nof air, joints, organic matter, corridors, windows, and (in)congruities.<\/p>\n

In drawing, black is a routine, but it is also an assumption of the shadows and of a de-
\nstructuring. When it is a surface, black is weight, it pushes down, it drowns and submerges;<\/p>\n

when it is a line, black is a schematic, a notation, a direction, a cradle, a company, or a crack. It
\ncalls out for the colors of fire from which its own ash is born, yet it may carry on alone in the
\ndugout trench of a perimeter, assuming a constructive takeover. \u201c(\u2026) the light with its
\nenormous weight slips into moats,\u201d blue or golden, until it gets dark.<\/p>\n

The drawing opens each image to a three-dimensional latency that pushes the surface to the
\npunctual welcoming of collage, of texture, of a sober experimentation on other materials \u2013
\nwood, cardboard and K-line \u2014 or the definition of forms with fire: in one series, the artist
\nmolds pieces of burnt K-line, holding back and searching out shapes which reproduce the holes
\nof the footboard, but they are, on their own, both a plea and the abstract alphabet of a
\nrelation to a visible horizon, to the barrier which it constitutes.<\/p>\n

This possibility of volume also exists in small objects that are normally not exhibited, but are
\npart of the journey that decides some of the drawings, in their way of being cracked and
\nstriated. Fiama speaks of the \u201cindecision of my place\u201d; the artist portrays the indecision of
\nhers: a mobile geography which elevates a cocoon, a place that is secret to the condition of the
\npersonal universe, without closing nor opening too much, making cautious bridges, provisory
\nhorizons, \u201csmoky colors\u201d, a fantastical drift and an offering of small worlds made with a raised
\nhand and as Fiama says, \u201cwith a head upon the dais\u201d.<\/p>\n

Lisbon, 22nd of January, 2017, Leonor Nazar\u00e9<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“I distribute these images In front of me, as if upon a terrace. Around the edge of the porch, the light with its enormous weight slips into moats. (\u2026) It is not possible to mark out the space where I am. I was here and on the horizon. With lips curved harvesting the bitter grains, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-publicacoes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.catarinapintoleite.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.catarinapintoleite.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.catarinapintoleite.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.catarinapintoleite.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.catarinapintoleite.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=558"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.catarinapintoleite.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1112,"href":"https:\/\/www.catarinapintoleite.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558\/revisions\/1112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.catarinapintoleite.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.catarinapintoleite.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.catarinapintoleite.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}