In December, as part of the “ Dentro & Fora” cycle of exhibitions at the Encontrarte Art Biennial, he had his first solo show “A Paisagem Surge-nos de Relance”, for which he and Fernando Almeida, his friend and the biennial's artistic director, wrote the following:

I
Letting ourselves be crossed by the landscape that welcomes us is, in itself, a breathtaking act of courage.

II
‍The territory of Amares, like so many others,is subject to the brightness of the days, to the passing of the seasons, to organic growth towards something. It is subject to the passage of time and the intensity of human intervention. To the paradigmatic sense of evolution.

III
‍We look at the landscape as something external to our bodies, not as an extension, but as another element. A place of conflict between the freedom and untamed splendor of nature and the manipulative constructivism of tomorrow.

IV
‍I think this is due to the most elementary issues of the senses, that is, color (sight), the morphology of space (touch), smell (which I don't think has much importance for this issue) and hearing,where most of the time, the context surrounding this work is one of silence.

V
‍Landscape painting is a clear mechanism for retaining time - each color changes over time; each shadow expands, retracts, disappears over time. It is in the moments when we see the greatest change, the greatest number of alterations taking place, that the need not to lose them grows and becomes challenging, almost in a vindictive way.

VI
‍The past is interesting not only for the beauty that the artists for whom it was the present were able to extract from it, but also as the past, for its historical value. The same is true of the present. The pleasure we derive from depicting the present is due not only to the beauty it may possess, but also to its essential quality as a present.

VII
‍João Abel Mota was born in Amares in 1999.

VIII
‍The landscape appears to us at a glance. It occupies our vision, establishing a fleeting reality architected between imagery and imagination. Thus, the landscape is neither real nor fictional, itis neither true nor false, it is subjective, porous and personal.

IX
‍Landscape is common sense. An amalgam of representations, a semi-scripted text. An I involved in the desire to (re)writethe place. A Museum.”

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Fotografias de João Ferreira, Fernando Almeida e JoãoJardim

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