Luz – própria,

Tudo o que existe

BEATRIZ BRUM

On the Moon, the landscape offers a cardiac image of the water circulating under the ground, like bodies with very thin skin and a meticulous blue map of blood vessels setting roots through the body-earth. The waters are opaque and the hills crystal clear. The light of the Sun seeps abundantly through the morning’s transparent mountains and finds shadows on the murky rivers and seas in the afternoon.

The terminology applied to Space does not escape the world’s binary organization, distinguishing bright bodies from illuminated bodies. The Sun is a luminous body that illuminates everything with its own light, casting light upon everything that surrounds it; it also illuminates the Moon, an illuminated body.

But the distance between two bodies is already a third one,

The bodies and the breeze that flows.

There are few consensual images. One of them is the idea that there are no two people alike, and that each human being is made of a unique combination of factors. Another is that everyone sees the same thing, which would sum up the human experience to a group of different people who see the same thing. The hegemony of sight on the development of truth is the reason why the recording of images is, simultaneously, the basis of surveillance systems and the construction of desire. In both cases, there are process imprecisions, such as shadows on the security footage or dark angles, confirming that there is a part of life that is impossible to control, that escapes us, and which is translated in an energy of faith or hope for the possibility of failure and escaping the norm.

On the Sun, there are no shadows. On this sunny winter’s morning, the light seeps into the air and expands. It is impossible to open our eyes, as if the brightness is overflowing the particle it sunk into and filled the eye with a fat tear that threatens to fall from our lower eyelid. How long can you stand it? 3, 2, 1… it fell. Uff, what a relief.

Luz-Própria

Tudo o que existe is Beatriz Brum’s second solo exhibition at the Fonseca Macedo Gallery and it marks a return to paper as a protagonist medium in what could be considered an exercise in the cartography of luminous life.

The drawings that the artist presents continue her exploration of light and its artistic limits, through a proposal that seeks the possibilities of illumination to the extreme, taking it to an almost-total luminosity, unique. Brum sets the space with a sensibility that is, simultaneously, razor-sharp and intuitive in the way it idealizes a singular soulful landscape, source or energy for a collective nutrition.

The black drawings, in contrast with the white and the glitter present all around the room, cause an intense desire for clarity and thorough openness. Such like a shadow, these works sustain the energy of faith that unblocks the enjoyment of an open horizon, limitless and timeless, elevated by the drawn mural and the framed white drawings. The choice of paper as a companion support defines a security structure necessary for the boldness of the direction, highlighting and sustaining the audacious spirit of the exhibition.

Filipa da Rocha Nunes

January 2024