É Tempo que a Pedra se Decida a Florir
24 april to 24 september 2021
Galeria do Parque, Vila Nova da Barquinha
Luís Silveirinha’s exhibition is commissioned by João Pinharanda under the existing partnership between the Council of Vila Nova da Barquinha and the EDP Foundation, as part of the art programme at the Almourol Contemporary Sculpture Park (www.barquinhaearte.pt).
"The plants and flowers in this exhibition were not picked at the Park awaiting us and calling for us outside. Nor in any other Park or Garden, Forest or Ocean in the world we inhabit. These are flowers that the artist grows and picks in his own mind. Flowers that can overcome any danger of extinction and multiply themselves at his will.
The plants and flowers shown here in large flattened leaves on the walls could serve as specimens captured in a fantastical herbarium.
By painting them, the artist simulates the very action of the plant’s growth and transformation: we observe the recording of a wild process of metamorphoses – shapes transformed into other shapes, shapes that go beyond the discernible limits of the original shapes. This metamorphic process does not occur outside the artist’s body, outside his organs of sight, outside his capacity for memory and imagination, outside his motricity: the artist is himself transformed every time he conjures up the image of a plant/flower.
It is important to understand whether these imaginary artistic images by Luís Silveirinha also transform those who observe them; and whether by altering our state of consciousness, they are forcing us to follow them. If that is the case, we will be able to enter the magic garden, the underwater or aerial world, the artificial paradises in which they are so powerfully inscribed."
João Pinharanda
