I knew it was there but I never thought about it.

As if I didn't already know, in 2018 I was confronted with the subtlety that everything that happens in life, is part of a complex chain of events. The subterranean universe that often rules much of what we think is chance, relationships and connections, are ultimately decisive in what we are doing.

In 2018, when I was creating an installation for the exhibition "Dissent Status", I realized that the scope of these connections can bring much more to the work in progress than what one might imagine at first glance. After the exhibition, I did something that has always fascinated me, which is to think about the reasons that led me to the things I've done. I started to travel back in time and discover some links that connected me to ideas that, I am almost certain, were in my mental framework when I was doing that work. To illustrate this, I will cite two notes inspired by texts taken from a notebook for the installation, which in some way are basic in this long chain of interconections, of which, this work is a small part, as are others that came later.

Note 1

Trying to figure out why I put two paintings together in a diptych, when they apparently had nothing to do with each other.

The painting started out as just half, because it’s a diptych and the lower part came first. At that time I was busy reading about a guy who wanted to build cathedrals out of tree saplings he planted in the ground. The guy was dedicated to making sculptures of living trees. "A romantic who do not worry about what others say or think . He developed his own theory about the gothic cathedrals . Maybe he got inspired during the tours on his native land or dreamed about angelic figures flying in dark forests. One way or another he found the seeds he used to build those ideas about the pillars that would support the entire weight of the immense vault of heaven . With the help of a cooper he began by nailing on the ground two rows of Ash sticks with about seven inches in diameter. On each beam he placed flexible willow branches uniting them in pairs to form a natural arch."

He was convinced not only that he was recreating the original method of the first Gothic architects, but also that the sticks will germinate creating a perfect union between nature and organic arquitecture.

A year after that experience he rejoiced to find that some sticks actually began to sprout, creating irregularities that corresponded to the Gothic shapes.

 

The upper part of the painting had to do with a completely different subject - Moving stones in the landscape without the intervention of human hands. The idea had come about after seeing what happened to the stones in Death Valley, the so-called "Sailing Stones", a mystery that was solved when someone managed to capture the movement of one of these stones in time-lapse. I preferred the mystical explanations because they stimulated my ideas about the hidden forces in nature that still remain a mystery, as well as making the site much more interesting.

At a certain point I put the paintings together and a new concept emerged, different from the sum of the two parts, which was given the title “Elequent World have been lost”. It seemed like a comprehensive title to me and now that I have gathered several works who are relate to this idea.

Note 2

A trip to the highest mountain in Portugal brought me a moment of incredible lucidity, because what I thought was a daydream, was a bridge to understanding the impact that observing certain aspects of nature have on me. When crossing a wooden bridge over the Zêzere River, in the Glacier Valley, I stopped in the middle to observe the noises that the stormy water made as it passed under that rough bridge. They sounded like voices chanting shamanic songs. The mountain that rose up tall next to me, the winter colors, the heavy sky above me, all of that resulted in a strong impression that the appearance of the world is just a code for going much further.

Long after leaving the place that song is still echoing in my brain. Impossible to forget that deep and husk voice shaped by the rhythm of the drums that sings a kind of ethereal breath in the winter landscape.

"They are still there singing to the void".

Now that I'm leaving, I know they keep telling the story of the ancient torrent moving under the stones.

"There is water underground, it's moving, it bounces and it shakes."

Is just a story that has been passed from generation to generation but that sticks fast in the skin. I have no clue where does this lead, maybe to something entangled in the maze of old phenomenon, a fractal branch of an idea of liberty. An underground secret shaped like a river that combines with that moment in the old Glacier Valley.

A stream I saw going strong into the wild, making a deep sound under de wooden boards. A line in the nature coming from the high mountain were the ice is melting.

Here I'm looking to the serpent moving away. On this side, the reality of the day, on the other bank, the bizarre geometry of some old trunks suspended in a feigned sleep. Those branches are strange, they seem to have grown as an inverted paradox, they feed from underground streams and project roots into the heaven.