The History of Art is also the history of colour. For centuries, blue was the colour that was most prone to regulation. Expensive, always in small amounts since lapis lazuli was scarce and had to travel a whole sea to be reduced into dust, blue was the colour of spirituality by default and had to be used with the utmost moderation. Only the Virgin’s veil could have the depth and shine of ultramarine blue. In its gradations and hues, blue acquires the intensity of the cosmos and emotion. It is not cold: it has the sweetness of motherly warmth, the temperature of balance, the ardency of a desired celestial asceticism. But is also not warm: it is the coldness of solitude, the breeze of sadness, the icy blade of death. In all its complexity, blue is the most human colour.

Curated by Carolina Quintela, Feeling Blue reflects upon the difficulty and ambiguity of the colour; of its mystery, romance, nostalgia and memory. From the states of impermanence that these concepts summon, divided between present and past, interior and exterior, “the choice of works and its artists falls upon the specific nature of each discourse and how they invoke subjective and emotional states as the main medium.” In this sense, “we can see blue as trace, memory, landscape, home, gesture and time. The erasing, the nostalgia of place and its temporality.”

With works by Fábio Colaço, Hugo Cantegrel, Teresa Arega, Patrícia Domingues, Bárbara Bulhão, Bernardo Ferreira and Inês Brites, Feeling Blue may be visited until 21st December, at Galeria Espaço Real.