There is a painting behind the painting and behind the painting and the other painting there is a painter and the painting comes from that: from the painter’s body.

Mariana Gomes presents the exhibition Neo-Pós-Neo until September 16 at Cristina Guerra-Contemporary Art, in the Estrela borough, Lisbon. The nine paintings, or rather, the nine re-paintings in this show are canvases that were once exhibited in 2019 on the same walls, but are now different, having undergone transmutations in four years, and are now no longer the same. The new gestural oil paint layers give the exhibited canvases new settings.

Neo-Pós-Neo is an exhibition that, apart from addressing mainly the language of painting, is the outcome of a performative process of the act of rethinking, remaking, rearranging and repairing the set of canvases on display. Is this the final version of these paintings? The fact is that they are in the here-now. And it is about them that I keep writing this article. Curiosity is all over the exhibition and this is what leads the viewer to imaginatively contemplate it.

Happening is a key word that leads us in this dance, allowing us to cover and reveal brushstrokes and gestures on the canvas, delving into the mysteriousness of transformations. There is a blend of expectation about the future and curiosity about the past. Some of these paintings could have been found in caves and ancient tombs, telling the origin of all things, or savoured during an intergalactic journey from windows outlining the universe’s immense range.

In the dense materiality and contrast between opaque and vibrant tones, new bodies emerge ready to transcend forms. In the curatorial text, Nuno Faria emphasises the sensation of being faced with event-paintings, where forms arise within each other. It is as if they were two tongues “fighting” in a kiss.

When I got home, I recalled a passage from Ida: A Novel by Gertrude Stein (1874-1946), where the author narrates an event that I felt relevant to share. “And then something did happen. What happened was this. Everybody began to miss something and it was not a kiss, you bet your life it was not a kiss that anybody began to miss. And yet perhaps it was. Well anyway something did happen and it excited every one that it was something and that it did happen. It happened slowly and then it happening and then it happened a little quicker and then it was happening and then it happened and then it was happening and then well then there then it was and if it was there then it is there only now nobody can care. And it all sounds kind of funny but it is all true.”

Mariana Gomes tackles several subjects in Neo-Pós-Neo. As I moved through this exhibition’s layers, I made connections with the luminous and atmospheric paintings of Willian Turner (1775-1851) and the repainting technique of the situationist Asger Jorn (1914-1973). There are multiple possible associations for these shapes that intersect, fit and complement each other under this night sky and that tell me something about love and passion. Transmutation and magic. They are fluid like fire spreading over oil.

Bibliographic reference:

STEIN, Gertrude. A história de todos e de cada um: Ida. Lisboa: Dois dias edicões, 2022. 175 p. Tradução: Ricardo Alberty e Luísa Costa Gomes