Júlio Alves
"If the landscape contains the spirit of the place, in a way this spirit is also linked to the identity of the observer. This notion has become increasingly evident because my connection with places has the tone of consciousness, of the feeling that accompanies me and is part of the memory and history of my wanderings."
The works in this exhibition are based on the idea that plastic representation is the result of a personal cosmology. The experience of the landscape is the starting point from which the observer's identity is shaped, making the images a script for individual sensitivity and a model for understanding reality. The works are multifaceted perspectives on what is seen but they are also agents of change and action on the world since observing and thinking about the landscape is also acting on it and as a result they produce something new that did not exist before. The fascination of the work of art is this vision of individuality about the world, unrepeatable, unique and full of symbolism.
AGELESS IN THE RAW
The works in "Ageless in the Raw" series started in 2021 and are related to the dynamic nature of the landscape and the perpetuation of its regeneration through a timeless matrix that exposes to our eyes a vitality that constantly alters the quality of the landscape. Diving into the hyper-reality of an extensive landscape context results in a lot of information entering our senses, different from what we are used to in everyday life in cities. Living in a clean and lucid state of mind within a natural landscape are factors that amplify sensations, providing unique experiences of excruciating clarity, the result is a great activity of the imagination, which for these reasons, runs in many directions leaving the feeling that there are more things under the sun than one suspects, this is another important point in the “Ageless in the Raw” series - seeing the world as an immense overlap of layers that dynamically mix in an internal osmosis - something that had to do with the raw landscape , where the human frame was missing, this important group of characters spread across the land, always making transformations, interacting with the environment and which disappeared in recent times. The raw state of the landscape highlights this void and my reaction was to fill it with an overvaluation of the dramatic charge, mythical facets that symbolized the action of telluric beings imprisoned in the primordial elements, characters that, although not visible, express themselves in the shadows of tangible things. - a certain group of trees along a waterline, the crunch of rocks, dancing flames of a forest fire or the roar of water through the polished stones of streams simulating whispers and voices - I was interpreting organization and vitality of the natural world as being the result of the intervention of a supra-real entity, beyond reach in the sense of being on another level or in another dimension. There was a vision of reality staged by the imagination that places a symbolic charge there that eventually had to do with human DNA and its ancient records that resolved existential anxieties and dealt with fears. It was the vacuum caused by this lack of people that sparked my interest in an interpretative reading of each element of the landscape and of certain combinations that seemed to be the work of an absent sculptor - readings that took the appearances of things as intelligible gestures as if nature were the work of a creator and not the result of chance or a random chain of circumstances, it seemed to me the only chance to explain this vitality with its perfect balance, which always prevailed over human gesture.
I felt compelled to focus on the dialogue between the primordial elements of the landscape and the human references that still remained from the past, such as the ruins of old houses and the mountain shelters that for me represented the nomadic spirit that remained in human habits even when the norm was to live most of the time in the same place, they also symbolized the spirit of the traveler since occasionally these shelters, with the door always open, were a refuge for walkers. Whenever I stood on the doorstep of one of these buildings, imagining that people with very different life circumstances had passed by, I projected onto the rustic stone walls the inquisitiveness of the solitary traveler in search of the solace of the landscape.
ELEMENTS IN A STATUS CHANGE
In 2017, a year before the massive protests against climate change, the Mação region in Portugal was decimated by a fire that left behind one of the largest areas of burned forest ever. The fire had already ravaged the region in 1991 and 2003, but this time it was much worse because almost everything burned with incredible speed and intensity, the action of the combat resources was ineffective and the result was a dramatic scenario of scorched earth. If, on the one hand, the series “Elements in a status change” arises from the impact of fires on the landscape, on the other, it also has to do with the “air of the times” which are producing major changes not only in terms of the climate but also in what concerns the pressure on nature that has its capacity for regeneration put to the test. The author reflects on how these changes and the changes that are underway have an impact on the landscape from which he gathers much of the inspiration for his work "Traveling through the mountains at that time left me depressed, with enormous sadness because in previous years I had visited the same places and felt increasingly connected to that green horizon. It was desperate to see everything destroyed and not recognize the old landscape that in a few days had lost all the variety of fauna and flora to become a field of ash painted black. It didn't take long for the images and feelings of those days to emerge in the paintings. The process happened spontaneously without a plan to make the subject a theme, it simply flowed and I only realized what the images represented after a few months had passed. The change took place over a set of paintings that I had started before the fire but which at a certain point were subject to a complete reformulation because I didn't like them and I didn't feel they were on the right track. At some point I started adding plasters and paints textured with fillers and in some cases I was close to destroying everything in a mixture of layers but the final result surpassed these contingencies and I felt that that combination of materials was taking control of the plastic expression and each decision was essentially based on what was happening at each step, I moved forward instinctively, not for lack of a plan or an objective but because I wanted to reduce the space between the stimulus and the result in painting, I covered and covered the surface again without worrying about the result, it was a mechanical process in which I reacted directly to what happened on the screen, which in turn prompted me to make other reformulations, which in turn provoked other reactions. This process made the painting advance a little by chance, however there was a common thread, even if I wasn't aware of what the objective or the plastic intention was, I followed a trend that over time became more obvious. I realized that the thematic characteristics would draw influences from another series - Maelsrom - which was generally related to the theme of the Apocalypse, the end of times or the collapse of the state of grace in the earthly paradise. On the one hand there was an expressive tendency that was related to the images of the fire and the storm of a world of flames but the background was broader, it had its roots in a feeling of disillusionment in relation to previous events. In 2009, the subprime financial crisis spread and caused tragedies all over the place. Inevitably, my personal universe was also affected and that was the bad energy that came to be reflected as the sign of the times projected in the paintings and from there came “Elements in a Status Change”, a series where the theme of fires served as starting point for a vision of chaos as a regenerating force."
Elements in a status Change #1
112,5 x 925 mm
Elements in a status Change #16
700 x 1000 mm
Our hands are fully immersed in the uninterrupted chain of time and so we are inevitably dragged along. The hands and the senses give us the sensation of diving into reality and it is believed that it is a sequential journey where some things come after others but if someone could guarantee us that such a thing does not exist and that after all everything happens outside time, we would have to rethink many concepts. Perhaps pretending is a good beginning to invent new things and who knows, the way to discover the unthinkable.
HARASSMENT ON EXPLICIT DETAILS
This series includes a works on paper that are fundamentally based on the contrast of black and white, to which one or two colors are usually added. Materials used include Indian ink, acrylic paints, acrylic plaster, and charcoal. The representation is based on the high-contrast graphics provided by the charcoal and the images are developed from details that, when stylized, show a language that is based on drawing and that formally assumes a conceptual detachment with the forms from which it started. The essence of the theme results from the representation of aspects that stand out in the landscape as notable elements, which define its identity and which depend on the way attention is focused, a process that translates the observer's path, which is ultimately the filter that gives the most evident contour of the representation. The work process is based on a wide variety of situations observed outside in a logic of rationalization of natural elements that later become lines and patches of color that embody the entire process that follows. The challenge is usually launched from what memory has retained, so it is possible in this series to identify concrete situations in the landscape that are later transformed into lines of force and in their simplified expression reinforced by the charcoal trace, in these cases it is the graphic structure of the landscape that gains weight over its formal reading. This conjugation between what is real and the stylized elements that emerge from the mental synthesis about what was seen, defines the quality of the images and becomes what is the common trait between the works in this series.
SPONTANEOUSLY IN A SENSORY EXPERIENCE
The works in this series are characterized by an expressionist representation where two contrasting principles stand out and which concern two distinct levels, the atmospheric space and the underground, with a clear cleavage between them, where there is no clear border, the difference is transmitted by a graphic code that includes the density of color and profusion of layers that define a space that is seen at the same time from a distance and very close up. This usually doesn't immediately jump out because there is no horizon line. It is a characteristic that can be seen when analyzing several works in the series, as if the vision needed some time to focus on the situation and only then does that open perspective emerge, where the ground seems to dissolve with the weight of things and becomes a fluid skin. incapable of containing what is above and at the same time hiding what is below. The surface does not exist as a containment plane for the landscape and the vision penetrates this mixture that takes the form of something that is alive and stirring in this subsoil, a world seen through movement. In contrast to this, on the surface there is no such tension and space seems to expand without barriers. Sometimes the transition is almost imperceptible and the tension of the painting is revealed in the details, in the concentration of graphic elements or nuances of color between one thing and another. The atmospheric drive suggests change and the movement that connects the various planes of the painting is the structuring element of the representation.
Júlio Alves has produced a diverse set of works that include painting, drawing, installation and sculpture, having participated in several collective and individual exhibitions. It was during the last decade that he has developed the theme of the landscape that is still the core of his work. The landscape in his work is more than a simple incursion into natural space, is built as a metaphor of man's relationship to the cosmos itself and refers to a mythical geography that takes place as a cosmology. Based on the notion that man builds the world the same way the world builds the man, his work is based on the perception of a reality which confront the objectivity of knowledge with the inability to explain all that is going on around us. This uncertain space loaded in each image, impels man to define scenarios and possibilities that give the illusion of being in the center of the world. So the images are not made from the reality and objective truth but also refer to the imaginary mythical projections. The creation of a landscape vocabulary is based on a number of trips undertaken in recent years This experience fueled his thematic approach and gave him ideas for further development on nature as a cultural reality, considering that the way to understand it does not happen independently of the cultural context of the observer. Graduated in architecture by FA Lisbon. Studies in National Society of Fine Arts of Lisbon. Founder of the intervention artistic group RIP 1981. Founder of the MARCA Group with thirty years of activity in the area of architecture and design. Individual exhibitions 2020 - Exhibition at Maap studio "Elements in a Status Change" 2019 - Exhibition Galeria Orlando Morais, Ericeira, "Estado de Divergência" 2018 .- Exhibition Galeria Project Room na Cidadela Art District em Cascais, "Paradox of Real Expectations"; 2016 - Exhibition Centro Cultural Palácio do Egipto , Oeiras, Vivificatur project; 2014 - Exhibition at Maap studio "Pulsar" and "Opus Circulatorium" projects; 2013 - Exhibition in Galeria Aberta, Beja, Projects: "Anger From Ashes"; 2012 - Maap studio _-Residency program in São Vicente fortress, Sagres and subsequent exhibition; 2011 - Exhibition at Maap studio, Project: "Great cruise"; 2010 - Exhibition at the Fortaleza de Santiago Sesimbra -Exhibition at Maap studio "Eagle vision"; 2009 - Exhibition na Galeria Costa do Sol, Almada; 2008 -Exhibition at the Fortaleza de Santiago Sesimbra; 2004 - Exhibition at Palácio Anjos in Algés; 1988 - Illustration work for "Contraste" magazine, Photography exhibition with catalog editing in Cascais; 1987 - Public Presentation of Utopian architectural project "Cascais XXI century"; 1986 - Palace of Egypt in Oeiras; 1985 - University of Coimbra - RIP project -Exhibition in the Faculdade de Letras, Lisbon;