“abyss”

linocut matrix and print: 300cm x 195cm

jury award | 5º bienal de espinho 2019
collection tribunal da relação do porto
municipal art collection, porto
private collection

photo by samuel ornelas

linocut print (left) 1/3  and matrix(right)
300cm x 195cm

photo by marta soutinho

  installation print and matrix
casa museu abel salazar | matosinhos 2019

photo by joão pinto

  Boys on their wooden horses play like big men. Being a knight does not end with riding, fighting and harnessing the wild animal, it implies social and economic prestige. In the Middle Ages the knight was subject to strict conduct and a code of moral honor. Here, the intention is to allude to practice and learnig process necessary for an exemplary education, a subjective model that is so easily found in the symbolic image of the knight. He, who rides the horse, reckless and courageous, with chivalrous mannerisms, venturing, into the unknown, like a Don Quixote de la Mancha (knight of the sad figure). From above come the girls, unconsciously held by men´s arms, swing-like. There was the intention to produce an image where each figure has a strong symbolic charge. Although the allegorical painting La Justice châtiant l’Injustice - 1737, Jean-Marc Nattier, was used as a reference, there isn´t, however, a mere illustrative relationship, thus open the diverse historical and current interpretations of the spectator to the “Abyss”.