Catalog Texts
Puzzlements and dynamics of a fruitful vision
It's the artist ambition to find a language to express himself. This issue has never presented to Teresa Ribeiro, a painter that refuses the easy, complacent and sterile self-satisfaction of those who believe to have a complete control over their craft, confining themselves to repeating formulae and applying techniques in an automated fashion. In this case, predictability is found exiled. In more than twenty years of activity, around a dozen cycles have been continuously succeeding each other. Sometimes sprouting side by side but rarely happening like sudden disruptions after a long development. However, appearances deceive. From apparent destruction comes a new cycle that seems to keep its distance from its predecessor: in a feverish desire to challenge the attained goals and known boundaries to experiment new paths, find new shapes and balances, only to rip them from the unformed abyss that precedes the creative moment, in amidst awe and revolt. The seduction of search reveals itself as being the very essence of Teresa Ribeiro's painting. In addition to the persuasiveness of the work, to dispel any doubts, one would only have to read the titles of her exhibitions and paintings that, when read as a whole, always point to a chaos from which it urges to re-establish order. A masterful astonishment before the riddles of life and creation, a genuine joy before each new and unexpected discovery, a permanent and unsatisfied question... And what the words conceal, the colours and shapes reveal. For Teresa Ribeiro, painting is a statement in which multiple inventive instances live together: existential wrath and approval, philosophical questioning and appeasement. An exciting game and hard work. And it's also a solemn moment of aesthetical research. From tapestry to the canvas, from canvas to paper, textures and bindings, fullnesses and emptinesses, robustness and softness, hardness and tenderness, lines and shapes all manage to express themselves and attain a refined rigour and elegance. Then the sudden ruptures define themselves showing a continuity made of small, almost undetectable, signs: microscopical germs, destined to transform into creatures and creations, sometimes powerful or ghostly. Faces lurking, old memories, hints of escape, allusive forms, ancestral burdens, dreams of flights, indistinct imaginations, flat geometries and attractive volumes, loose or wide signs, paths that flow and suddenly stop and change course.... because there are always unforeseen worlds to explore. And hence Ecos e Ressonâncias (Echoes and Resonances) come to life. But, while we see them, perhaps for its creator they are no longer there. Her gaze has different horizons. Someday, we may harvest them. When they're ripe. And so, we wait.Teresa Ribeiro uses strong manly lines, perceptible in the vigorous way of underlining the drawing, where it shows an imposing wish and will. Therefore, the artist needs a large breath to produce, a noticeable eager desire of freedom that distinguishes her good painting: light, air and space are essential. An art that imposes by its sincerity and inner will, managing an impressive aesthetic, cultural and historical whole by its quality and volume. Through her work, Teresa Ribeiro is able to express the restlessness, the creativity she builds in her lyrical, tragic or dramatic worlds. In her paintings, recovered with security and contemporaneity, she performs disturbing visual offerings. Images of strong visual impact, recurrent shapes nurturing a wish for constructive/destructive communications which, although seeming figurative, they carry within the enormous power that is only possible when the aim is painting in the true sense of the word. Something which Teresa Ribeiro dedicates herself to, so well. Sebastiana Fadda – 2009 |
Catalog Exhibitions
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