I had woken up from a dream. In it, a me that was not me walked through cracks and dark spaces, listening to a lot of people saying that the world was about to end. Bizarrely, there was no agitation. Nor was the atmosphere chaotic. Much less was the scenario apocalyptic and desperate as it is presume in situations like this. On the contrary. There was a state of imminence there. So much so that a buzz circulated among people that, if the world was really going to end at that time, what would be kept for posterity. There were divergences in the answers, but I, quiet in my corner watching such discussions, thought that if it were to end and start all over again, I would want to start in silence.
That dream never happened, but it serves as a fiction of possible subjective analyses present in the works of Mateus Moreira. There is in his paintings a constant state of tension between ends and beginnings, as if the action of his brushstrokes put us waiting for an event that is both indescribable and inevitable, and that in this environment everything is intoxicated. Neither despair nor hope, but in constant waiting. Nevertheless, the artist chose a word as the show's title that expresses a duality between stunned and ecstatic.
Although his pictorial compositions depart from a wandering observation of idle spaces that the artist observes around the city, Mateus Moreira's work seems to me to be a much greater commentary than just pointing out the neglect of the consequences of our poorly, or almost never, planned urban development. Even more, it is from this observation that the artist awakens in us - once again - antagonistic sensations. If, on the one hand, it is essential to embrace progress as part of human evolution itself, with its deeds and conquests, on the other hand, it puts that same progress in check, being directly responsible for the destruction of humanity - see the political, economic, and especially the environmental ones, which have been defining the 21st century.
However, Moreira bets on a palette of colors that figure between black and shades of orange and on brushstrokes that alternate between the speed, precision and meticulousness of the gesture. Appearing between day and night, in the twilight of dusk, this state of suspense present in his paintings makes us face the possibility of reimagining the world, even without the certainty that another day will appear after the night. Such suspension is not just a subjective element in Moreira's painting. In some of his compositions, we can observe suspended bodies that can be interpreted as beings in the search for redemption, or succumbing to decline.
It is all these conceptual resources and technical choices present in Moreira's paintings that make me think that even if they point to a certain fatalism-pessimism, it is from this setback that the power rises to take us out of the lethargy that seems to affect a large portion of society. If we are living in a world in shambles, Mateus Moreira points out that either we marvel at the possibilities of building new futures, or we will remain numb in the face of these same possibilities. I prefer to think that instead of a melancholic posture facing a path that is increasingly apocalyptic, we can choose to affirm all the various forms of life on a daily basis.
Carollina Lauriano
August/2023 – SP Arte – Rotas Brasileiras
