The name of the exhibition now on show at Buraco, Pulso de Seda, is an obvious reminder of the intricate historical and cultural tangle of the Silk Road, a vast array of commercial and symbolic routes connecting East and West. This is particularly striking for someone who, like me, spent several years delving into the complex world of oriental ceramics, working as an appraiser and cataloguer of porcelain, especially focusing on Chinese pieces. The image used to promote the exhibition – the bottom of a Mandarin bowl – also stirs up recollections of an aesthetic encapsulating centuries of artisanal tradition, where each brushstroke bears its own language, etched into the glazed surface. To assess a porcelain piece (like any other, actually) is, first of all, a profound reading exercise. Each vestige of its antiquity – the traces of its journey, weight, wear, hair, patina, colour tone – is a fragment of a greater narrative, a story told by the piece to anyone willing to listen. Bowls, vases, paintings are all material testimonies of times, geographies and cultures; productions that, in themselves, contain chapters of the history of art and the world.

Likewise, Rudi Brito and Ana Manso’s artistic endeavours play out as unique visual narratives. As stressed by Isabel Carvalho on the exhibition text, these two universes do not strive for an obvious convergence, but rather coexist in productive tension, opening the way for dialogue – ‘they present paintings juxtaposed side by side, challenging the audience to find a dynamic effort to reconcile the differences’. The marks left by each artist – traces of gestures, layers and intuitions – take us to unique territories that are nevertheless encountered and complemented in the exhibition space, like two porcelain pieces from different realms that, placed side by side, hint at new interpretations and surprising connections. Speaking of the exhibition, Ana Manso explains that considerable time has gone into its completion. Numerous meetings and conversations, time spent learning about each artistic practice and its limits, led to a collaborative and complementary place, but with the individual character of each artist’s practice fully emphasised.

The mural greeting visitors at the gallery entrance, a collaborative effort by the artists that emerged late in the assembly process, a half-dream piece^[1], with elements in blue and yellow tones, emphasises the Eastern aspect. The title of the exhibition, the image of the bottom of the bowl, and now, right here, a sort of stylised umbrella and two different-shaped vases, emerge as dislocated fragments, stolen from the bottom of a plate from a different time, but brought back together in the present. At once familiar (to me) and disruptive, a bridge lays claim to the space inhabited by a multi-layered narrative of unspoken but hinted-at stories, like the works below, in the lower room – yes, we can start on the ground floor as Pulso de Seda offers no starting point.

Rudi’s art reflects an explicit attempt to explore fragmentation, but also dreaming as a process and visual language. His works unravel the conventional pictorial sphere, dismantling the compositional hierarchies and introducing an intuitive and fluid approach. The works are always multi-layered and profound territories with a non-random fragmentation, but rather guided by an internal rationale behind revelation: uncovering only that which must be seen, without any perceived arbitrariness, nor any rigid order. Often in pastel tones, the colour, vibrant and liquid, amplifies the sensory element of the work, giving it an emotional nature while enhancing the plasticity of its motifs. Rudi has always been interested in floral elements, but this time they are the central element, ‘almost excessive, just like a liqueur, one that is so sweet that it becomes almost nauseating’^[2]. The artist tells us that, in this very room, two works are proof of different artistic processes, or that they are the outcome of different completion processes – ‘There’s a duality. There was a clear urge to finish Dreams of a Dead Friend (2024), a sense of urgency, which led me to solve it abruptly. I was not happy and I decided to do it again… One can feel the rift, the struggle. On the other hand, in Greed of Gardens (2024), the process is perceived in a different way, there was coldness, clarity, I wanted to stop and I did. I like how they communicate.” They are works made on paper, primed with enamel and hence made waterproof, allowing the artist to remove, to subtract. He uses brushes, rags, steel wool and other tools to make these excavation gestures possible.

The room also contains works designed especially for this exhibition that disrupt the linearity of the space, jutting out from the walls. Desventramento/Bota (2024) illustrates this three-dimensional journey, exploring the visual poetics of a common object – a lace-up boot, transcending its utilitarian purpose to conjure up something visceral. The seemingly ripped boot gives the impression of bare entrails and invites us to rethink our perceptions of objects as bearers of sometimes disturbing meanings. The fragmentary and vibrant quality of Rudi’s artistic output can be seen in Pulso de Seda, when he uses filters, layers and optical refractions to generate images that multiply and echo each other. Often stemming from the imagination, these works form patterns and shapes ranging from the recognisable to the abstract. Transient motifs, birds, vases serve as initial catalysts, but quickly melt into a pictorial fluidity that pushes the boundaries between object and background. The outcome is a series of paintings that throb between states of mind, where cut-outs, fragments and surfaces coexist like subterranean structures brought to light. Shapes unveil the inner layers of the artistic process, uncovering the foundations where the creative impulse is rooted and embodies itself. These essential elements of his visual poetics engage in a dialogue with Ana Manso’s approach to colour, form and movement. ´

This exhibition is an outgrowth of the artist’s continuous research and practice, of her will for her paintings to outlive the canvas, to transcend it and behave as an independent body. Ana Manso is deeply invested in researching pictorial materiality and turning the two-dimensional plane into a visual and sensory experience area. Her works are the fruit of an intuitive process switching between construction and deconstruction, where superimposed paint layers result in compositions ranging from the overt to the occult. This movement between visible and hidden not only reflects the passage of time, but also adds a vibrational quality to her paintings, imparting a pulsating, almost palpable energy. The painstaking use of see-through layers, combined with deliberate and spontaneous gestures, results in seemingly breathing, throbbing and shifting surfaces in front of the audience, reflecting a continuous momentum in a meeting ground between the material and the immaterial, the static and the dynamic (janela de bambu, 2024 and pérola pelo rio, 2024). Her ethereal compositions spring from pictorial layers as a way of presenting a constantly metamorphosing reality, where she ‘superimposes transparent layers, opting for the simultaneous use of one or more brushstrokes as a reference point, generating the impression of a changing blur, a statement of an elusive reality’^[3]. The works in Pulso de Seda, like Rudi’s, also bear marks of the process, revealing an intrinsic narrative of recurring gestures and creative cycles, which shape a unique visual language. This not only captures the aforementioned simmering energy, but also delves into the edges of painting as an expansive arena of possibilities, where colour, form and gesture challenge the very nature of art-making.

Ana Manso explains that the upstairs room ‘was conducive to the mishap… it allowed it to happen. That was where we put things that had recently surfaced, that broke away from the classic model of each person’s work, that stepped out of their comfort zone’. Works that were not yet works, ones still undergoing development, were materialised here (e.g. Sem título, 2024). Here in this room, hands connecting paintings to each other (Pissypaws, 2024 and a aranha não respondeu, 2024), different formats, supports and layouts have provided an experimentation spot, where making and presenting with ‘less finesse, more directly from the studio to the exhibition’ takes shape, starting a process that may change the way we consider the trajectories of artists from now on.

Pulso de Seda is organic and alive, almost as if it contained the traces of time and the intuitive process carried out by Rudi Brito and Ana Manso, who are now in dialogue for the first time. The exhibition is on until December 14, 2024, at Buraco.

^[1] Rudi Brito on the mural in the exhibition.
^[2] Rudi Brito on the exhibition.
^[3] Isabel Carvalho in the exhibition text,