5 Paintings

Almost-Landscapes

There is, it would seem, a paradox between the name of the current exhibition and what is revealed in the works. On the one hand, we have the laconic title 5 Paintings and, on the other hand, we have a series of works in which the generosity of forms and colors do not evoke synthesis, but rather a baroque visuality. Therefore, it becomes a challenge to unravel the links with nature, both concise and eloquent, which characterize the practice of Marina Perez Simão.

Let’s go back to the origins of these paintings. Everything starts in small sketchbooks in which fine traces made with pencil reveal almost nothing, but an almost-nothing that is already drawing and rhythm. The cadence that emerges from the paintings begins here, in the curves, in the wavy lines produced with a sort of automatic writing. In the following stage, the task takes the form of an elusive element. It is at this point, with the numerous watercolors on paper that precede the paintings, that the artist creates a type of cartography that guides the pictorial act.

It is not by chance that her canvases are the exact size of what her body can apprehend, her height and arms’ reach define the parameters so large gestures can reach their full range. If we are looking at a composition that begins with the minimum (drawing) then moves towards the whole (painting), when we think of the image field we can take the opposite route, as the appeal of the image goes through a process of decantation.

It is not misplaced to associate this group of paintings with the genre of landscape. The particularly accurate way in which Simão sets up her complex chromatic proximities and the consistency of her sinuous lines makes us ‘see’ the mirages of mountains, seas, horizons, moons, skies, where only color and form are given. The artist works at the threshold between abstraction and figuration, always insinuating, but never revealing anything. By taking the side of ambiguity and moving away from the literal, handing us the task to mentally fill in what we see, Simão moves in the counterflow of a time eager to show, reveal, explain and narrate everything.

We understand how technical acceleration in the field of sensorial stimulation results in a fragmented perception. Faced with the proliferation of stimuli, we see a lot but see nothing. We are faced with a paradox. We live amongst highly advanced technologies at the same time that our perceptive apparatus is increasingly atrophied.i Instead of broadening sensitivity, the way these innovations are introduced into our everyday lives seems to trigger an anesthesia of senses, producing a sort of ongoing soporific dispersion. The 24/7 world, marked by the mass presence of technology, is the same world that witnesses a narrative inflation. Everything must be said, narrated, and explained, and everything that is revealed in a perceptional abstract way, or in between the lines, or only insinuated, is gradually losing space. This current context of omnipresent images and discourses is also where we experience our increasingly impaired imagination.

It is no surprise that Simão finds in literature and music expressions that are very dear to her. The artist reminds us that ‘painting exists where the word fails’. This is precisely where her almost-landscapes operate. They never narrate or illustrate something, they emerge instead as pictorial acts for that which language cannot embrace, thus summoning a dormant imagination. Her greens, blues, and oranges can be perceived as almost forests, rivers, suns, and also notes that translate, like in music, lightness and scale, summer and storm.

Perhaps here we have a clue for the enquiry introduced at the beginning of this text. If we are, unequivocally, facing a practice whose formal and chromatic dynamics exude a baroque eloquence; at the same time, in its reluctance to adopt any discursive dimension and in its decision to insinuate without showing, Simão’s practice is also an unsuspected exercise of synthesis. The exhibition is titled 5 paintings, but if we look carefully, the set of paintings brought together here seems to be forging a single intertwined movement. Going against the present time that is marked by an over-eagerness to show and narrate everything, Marina Perez Simão offers us a cartography without a destination. It is up to us, using a newly irrigated imagination, to fill in the map of her almost-landscapes.

– Luisa Duarte