Those who follow the work of Teresa Gonçalves Lobo know that it is made of lines, twists and curves, intertwined traces and a mesh of strokes. It is from the intersection of those strokes that the tension of each of the drawings of Teresa comes to life. From one line that is alive and attaches itself to others, from passage points of energy and others of its condensation or where it compresses itself. The knots of the Teresa’s lines hold the vitality of each work. They create pauses in the flow of the lines and rhythms that generate dynamics. So, is that a surprise that, after years of developing these “fibres”, Teresa arrives at ropes, strings, knots? In a word: evolution. And it is through a slow and thorough evolution that her route is constructed ever since the artist decided to transfer her existence to a visual plane.
The diversification of materials and techniques in this exhibition is not a novelty either in Teresa Gonçalves Lobo’s career. The artist has always explored photography, although she has not exhibited it, and with respect to sculpture or installation, these follow also the coherent line of the previous exhibitions. But it is, however, interesting to note that this time it is as if the drawings of Teresa gained body and the lines transformed into ropes. An inevitable objectualization, since the suggestion of that movement could be guessed for a long time. But in the work of of Teresa things happen when they have to happen. They are not plans, they are inevitabilities or evidences.
It is remarkable to verify how the artist is capable of abandoning herself to the unpredictable forces of her work. As if she let herself be controlled by the intrinsic life of something that she herself gave life to. Teresa listens to her works and follows the path they murmur. And this is only possible through a watchful passivity. An alert sense, a trust in herself and her work. Only thus do we see an artist like her that does not predict futures but follows trustingly the steps that her work takes in her hands. It was in this way that a hanging rope turned into poetry. It is in this way that the sheets of paper turned into hanks. It was in this way that from a hand that draws lines we move to the image of the appropriation of the hand by those same lines.
The objectual side of work of Teresa Gonçalves Lobo materialises especially on these works where the rope transforms itself into stroke, swaying from angular and geometric to curved and loose. The play and interaction between the drawing and the tridimensional line superposed creates a hybrid work that is pictorial and simultaneously sculptural. Almost in the realm of anti-painting, this series relates directly to some works of Helena Almeida.
Between us. Between us there is a rope. Between us there is a line. Between each stop there is a path. From step to step there is movement. One cannot exist without the other. If there is a knot it is because a rope already existed. The knot, culturally understood in its more negative forms, does not have to be like that. A knot is a challenge. A knot is a stage. A knot is a connection, a stop, a passage. A ritual and a problem. What comes next it is not always different, but it is from those breaks of rhythm, of different intensities, with flows not always constant and of mechanisms that the life of Teresa’s work is made of. It consists of a see-saw, a rope over which one travels between one territory and the other. Island and continent…
November de 2016