Portugal , Serra da Estrela: Matter,
Serra da Estrela is not represented in my paintings as landscape. It enters the work through matter, sediment, erosion, gravity, light and scale. Working from the mountain region of central Portugal, at +1800m of altitude I incorporate selected sand pigments and natural sediments from the Seia River into layered acrylic surfaces. These materials carry the physical memory of the territory: mineral density, abrasion, absorption, water movement and geological time.
Serra da Estrela is Portugal’s highest continental mountain range: a territory shaped by granite, water, wind, seasonal pressure and extreme changes in light. Its presence is not decorative. It is structural. Rock formations, riverbeds, mist, erosion and accumulated sediment create a landscape where time is physically visible.
This environment informs the way I understand painting: not as image, but as a field built through pressure, duration, absorption and material transformation.
A Territory of Scale, Weather and
Geological Time
The Water (liquid in summer and solid as snow in winter) & Sands from Lagoons and River carries fragments of the mountain through water: sand, mineral particles (silver-pigments, earthy- pigments and black-pigments, organic traces and eroded matter Selected sediments are gathered, prepared and introduced into the painting process. They do not function as symbolic decoration. They alter the surface physically. Mixed with acrylic layers and mineral pigments, the sediments create variation in density, absorption, granularity and reflection. The surface becomes less uniform, more resistant and more responsive to light.
The Water & Sand from Lagoons & Rivers:
