The deliverance of earth
Túlio Stafuzza, 2020
“everywhere is the threshold of the world.”
– Maria Gabriela Llansol
– Maria Gabriela Llansol
Light always follows the same itinerary. It rises from a spring as if it were a river, and its current rushes against objects, bodies, and the landscape. It meets its own end in the sea of matter, rendering it fully visible. Now, for a moment, imagine a rebellious light that would deliver even more than its limpid destiny. In addition to lighting, joyous, playful, it would begin to love whatever it touches. Paula Siebra, through her paintings, seems to witness precisely the history of this light that learned to love.
They are common images. Daily life. Landscapes and portraits in which recognition and identification are straightforward. For those who are somewhat connected with the country life, it is almost like visiting a family photo album. Not an album that registered forced smiles and fake poses, but what there is of most spontaneous in a common experience. The compositions with reduced elements result in an instant immersion by the observer. Consequently, the first feelings that emerge from the paintings are embraced by an old intimacy. We see banal objects that live mute in our daily lives. We see bored figures and wonder if we would already have run into them on our distracted way. We see landscapes, and we are inexactly sure that we have been there. We are involved. Enchanted by a skilled storyteller who uses only the silence of things to take us to suddenly unspeakable places. Another reality is suggested in which poetry runs free, without restraint. And - here lies one magic of painting - we are astonished to realize that this place of affection is the same place in which we have always been.
All this intimacy is delivered to us over a slight layer of dust. There is a friendship with the shades of the pottery. The colors are worked under an atmosphere that refers to dryness. As if a veil of sand covered everything. The result of this process is that those familiar compositions gain a diffuse aura. What is close is entwined to an almost dreamlike distance. We feel as if we were facing a memory that does not exactly belong to time. The experience is ambiguous. Finally, we end up wondering if life itself was a constant contrast between closeness and abandonment.
Another aspect that does not go unnoticed when we think of her whole work is the fluidity with which portraits and landscapes appear. We can say that the artist paints landscapes with the same intimacy with which she would paint the portrait of a loved one. In the same way, human figures recover the immensity of a horizon. All things are treated with the same tenderness. Therefore, we are facing wisdom that does not disdain anything capable of shining on the earth.
We have in Paula Siebra's work the unveiling of a world in which poetry is not a complement, an adjective, but the primal substance of things. Both what is real and imagined, evident and suggested, memory and present are intertwined thus in a single burst.
They are common images. Daily life. Landscapes and portraits in which recognition and identification are straightforward. For those who are somewhat connected with the country life, it is almost like visiting a family photo album. Not an album that registered forced smiles and fake poses, but what there is of most spontaneous in a common experience. The compositions with reduced elements result in an instant immersion by the observer. Consequently, the first feelings that emerge from the paintings are embraced by an old intimacy. We see banal objects that live mute in our daily lives. We see bored figures and wonder if we would already have run into them on our distracted way. We see landscapes, and we are inexactly sure that we have been there. We are involved. Enchanted by a skilled storyteller who uses only the silence of things to take us to suddenly unspeakable places. Another reality is suggested in which poetry runs free, without restraint. And - here lies one magic of painting - we are astonished to realize that this place of affection is the same place in which we have always been.
All this intimacy is delivered to us over a slight layer of dust. There is a friendship with the shades of the pottery. The colors are worked under an atmosphere that refers to dryness. As if a veil of sand covered everything. The result of this process is that those familiar compositions gain a diffuse aura. What is close is entwined to an almost dreamlike distance. We feel as if we were facing a memory that does not exactly belong to time. The experience is ambiguous. Finally, we end up wondering if life itself was a constant contrast between closeness and abandonment.
Another aspect that does not go unnoticed when we think of her whole work is the fluidity with which portraits and landscapes appear. We can say that the artist paints landscapes with the same intimacy with which she would paint the portrait of a loved one. In the same way, human figures recover the immensity of a horizon. All things are treated with the same tenderness. Therefore, we are facing wisdom that does not disdain anything capable of shining on the earth.
We have in Paula Siebra's work the unveiling of a world in which poetry is not a complement, an adjective, but the primal substance of things. Both what is real and imagined, evident and suggested, memory and present are intertwined thus in a single burst.