In the exhibition Composição para um espaço com base nas estrelas e planetas by Sérgio Carronha, at Galeria Municipal de Almada, we encounter several mysterious paths and alignments set off by the artist’s pieces. Paintings with earthy tones cover the gallery windows, like concentric circular drawings, in a site-specific process, common in Sérgio Carronha. The muddy materials, often powdery trails, the depicted paths, the shapes inscribed in stone – all this retrieves ancestral knowledge, with its symbolic codes, related to elements such as the sun and the moon. Sérgio Carronha’s creative effort also depends on memory. In a process that materializes with the help of space and time. The artist, as said by the curator Filipa Oliveira, conducts a study «extended and expanded in time». The study’s target is a plot of land in Montemor-o-Novo, where he started working in 2017 and where he decided to live in, to cultivate and explore.

Carronha identified the shadow points, the light points, the water lines, the trail triggered by the wind, the land’s humidity. He looked for the autochthonous, the most natural existing there.

The artist approached the place whilst respecting its nature and elements.

The space is appropriated, but such appropriation is not manipulated by an imperialist feeling towards nature. Quite the opposite. The space is used and studied in its most environmental and sustainable domains.

The space belongs to the artist, but also to the surrounding nature. Before the artist appeared, this already existed.

There is an ethical environmental awareness in Carronha. The artist wants the land in Montemor-o-Novo, once dry, to have vegetation, always respecting its cycle and natural identity. In a consistent and deep civic vision, the artist understands what is most important in our days: working together to find a resolution for the environment.

Composição para um espaço com base nas estrelas e planetas is on view at Galeria Municipal de Almada until October 16.