Art Room, Lisbon Nov 2022.

Work speaks for itself, but the worker can also speak of it, to it, for it, about it.

This is the first time that I am exhibiting any of my work. It is self-expression that finds its way to get out there, and sit somewhere outside of any one self: the idea and its desire to materialise and sit now in space, now sits in space. This space.

This space holds the idea. It feels like a long voyage from somewhere far away that has had to wait, has had to overcome the fear and the putting aside for other things. Never the right time. Always something seemingly better to do.

It feels now that finally that time has come: to stop waiting, to stop thinking that there are other more important things to be done. It feels now that the time is now for just acting and doing and expressing. Its material form arrived as color. The practice and the repetition of color over color over color. Layer over layer. Trying all different alternatives that trigger or spark something new.

A kick. A satisfaction of some sort. These colours appear and attract each other.

I would like to imagine them as magnetic forces that find their law of attraction between them, and then settle on paper. They feel in peace with one another, they are in some kind of harmony. These paintings are not about any symmetry or any linear perfection. Your eye—like mine—may feel bothered trying to settle somewhere in search of that visual balance. It may be about the space in between: the space of harmony and frequency that vibrates with these colours that choose to sit with each other.

I can be imagined as the mechanical force that exists in order for them to find their way and end up floating in space vibrating with each other. Here. Now.

I want to bring into this first show of mine the feeling of a temple. The temple that holds one’s spiritual practice.

Any form of art or creative action has, for me, a spiritual connection. And any place of exhibition or creation could be thought of as a Temple. In English and many languages, the word “temple” descends from an ancient word that can mean both “to cut” and “to stretch out”. The sacred space is cut by a line from the profane space. But the line can be crossed. We can stretch and reach across it, through it, into it.

It is happenstance, but not mere coincidence, that the architectural setting where I am showing has such a Temple aura. It is a reminder of the inner temple —between the temples of the forehead, within the chambers of the heart.

That place for creation and contemplation.

Walking up the stairs to this architectural setting, to this first floor, to this attic in the sky, to this ark all made of wood, makes me feel that I am in a spiritual place.

Is there a way for something that is also a contemporary art exhibition to become—because or despite of that— some reflection of the spiritual act of creation?. The Temple holds the works and holds the spiritual practice as a physical and non physical place. The soul can rest here and feel nurtured, can practice the essence of what fulfils its time and place on earth. To find one’s truth.

Any creative practice requires creating that temple and looking after it by

offering the presence to live and create. We are temples, our body are temples that hold us and carry us with our thoughts, our desires, our passions, our dreams.