I remember the poet, the pretender who «pretends so completely, that he even pretends that it is pain the pain he really feels pain».[1] Pessoa’s autopsychography is reflected in Jorge Molder through the representation of the body.

At this exhibition’s entrance, the image of a pair of hands reminds us of the prestidigitator’s ability, the one who takes us to a world where phenomenological apprehension is merely an illusion of the senses. The game multiplies itself in high contrast photographs, whose scale is closer to our body, making us enter a oneiric universe.

It is between sleep and dream[2] that we wander through the shifting images of small symbols, figures, floating objects on black backgrounds: a neoclassical chandelier, an empty frame, a diffuse star, an undulating carp. But, as we enter the exhibition, the artist’s image takes centre stage: a mute scream, a writhing face, another that stares directly at us; and, finally, a body lying in darkness. That double meaning, between being and appearing dead, between rest and eternal immobility that projects itself to our eyes.

Sleep and dream are also places of light and shadow, matters where our fears converge until the end of cognoscence.

In another space, three pale-pinked withered roses under a glass plate. Here Jorge Molder’s face gives way to the observer, to the reflection of a body: my body, your body, the artist’s body. Three roses in the darkness and the life-giving soil being turned over.

In the cycle of eternal return, the dream frees us from amor fati.

Perhaps Mais Tarde [Afterwards], under the twilight of night, we may realise that we are at once subject to birth and death, as parts and members of perishable forms, or as forces simultaneously truth and representation.

Mais Tarde, by Jorge Molder, is on view at Galeria Belo-Galsterer, in Lisbon, until January 29.

[1] Pessoa, Fernando. (1932). Autopsicografia. Available here.

[2] As stated in the exhibition leaflet conceived by Alda Galsterer, «in this exhibition, Jorge Molder works on an initial series, commissioned by GRANTA, whose leitmotif is Sleep/Dream. Sleep and Dream are experiences common to all humans, universal but often lonely experiences; and worlds yet to be explored.» Available here.