« Enemy of the landscape

On devine en lisant, on crée; tout part d'une erreur initiale.
Marcel Proust

There is a work by Fernando Marques de Oliveira which includes the phrase "enemy of the landscape". It’s a curious affirmation, with an undefined subject, which immediately creates a linguistic tension that contaminates the plasticity of the work. Is the artist opposed to that artistic genre? Or is he providing a commentary on the way that humans have treated the natural settings that they have built? I avoid either option, because I believe it's possible to read the short text as an aphorism or, better still, as a fragment of a verse transcribed from a Greek stele – Archilochus comes to mind, who wrote in the 7th century BC: ".... "I know something very important:/ whoever harms me, I will respond with terrible offences."

This exhibition encompasses five decades of work by Fernando Marques de Oliveira - a cultured man, a dandy, a gentleman and an aristocrat. Someone who loves the good things in life, who listens to classical music and jazz, who reads poetry - Cavafy, Ferlinghetti - philosophy - St Augustine - and prose - Paul Bowles. An artist who is Proustian at heart, and has a copy of A la Recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time), in the version translated by Pedro Tamen, on his bedside table.

These characteristics, which define his way of being in life, are evident in his work, even when he tries to use geometric or organic patches of black to conceal certain aspects of the formal composition of his works. Fernando Marques de Oliveira has his own "dark way" of conveying his personal experiences and inspiration, because not everything is light in the creative process, it’s sometimes crossed by profound suffering...


Óscar Faria
November 2024 »