De noite vivem estrelas, cintilantes! is the most recent exhibition of Luís Silveirinha at the BAG Banco das Artes‘ Project Room, in Leiria.

Based on Goethe’s poetic reflections on the gaze – which inspired the title of the exhibition –, Silveirinha created several drawings on the intimate relationship between sight and image, between image and drawing. The artist acts in order to think about the perceptual phenomenon and the construction of art. In art, theory is practically useless without practice, and poetic thought is more relevant than rational thought.

At the same time, the artist shows the importance of reading the work of art, situated between memory, imagination and the power of the senses. Everything seems to be something, but it is never exactly so. After all, there are several associations and the forms and signs are a metamorphosis from vegetable to mineral, from mineral to anthropomorphic. The core of the work lies in the uncertainty of the interpretations. According to Hugo Barata, curator of the exhibition, the works “suggest a cycle between shadow and luminosity, a conceptual game of linguistic renewal, placed in an ambiguous space, where form appeals to the purposeful escape from the purely rational”.

De noite vivem estrelas, cintilantes!, by Luís Silveirinha, until 30 July, at the BAG Banco das Artes, Leiria – a place that, project after project, is becoming a mandatory visit for contemporary art in Portugal.