In the frantic city there is silence, moments of pause and reflections illustrated by Sandra Abafa
Portuguese artist Sandra Abafa is in Macau as an artist in residence, at the invitation of The Portuguese Bookshop (Livraria Portuguesa). The outcome will be shown in an exhibition entitled “O que te trago do tempo que passou” (“What I bring you of the time that has passed”) with the inauguration scheduled for December 1st in the bookshop gallery space.
"I came to experience all the energy of Macau, the textures, the sounds and the smells and to see what influence it would have on my work," artist Sandra Abafa explained. With extensive work in the area of children's illustrations, Sandra Abafa is in Macau as an artist in residence, at the invitation of The Portuguese Bookshop.
The residency "has been undertaken on the street, drinking a little of all this in," continued the artist. "My trip to Macau started the moment I agreed to come. I've been making works up to my arrival. And here the idea was to feel much of what is experienced, to photograph details and everything else, to make notes of these sensations. It ends up being a bit of a trip about the before and the current, what’s missing is what will come afterwards," she explains. The exhibition will thus be a meeting between note taking of work created, illustrated reflections of “O que te trago do tempo que passou” and the result of the artistic residency in Macau. The event also marks the opening of Portuguese Bookshop as a permanent exhibition space, according to manager Filipa Didier. "We want the bookshop to become a meeting place where people can have coffee, tea and cakes, surrounded by books and art," the manager explained.
The residency of Sandra Abafa has as a starting point work carried out while still in Portugal. In the watercolour illustration on the exhibition invitation, one sees what, in an absent-minded reading, could be interpreted as clouds. But "it's the sea, but it can be clouds, in fact, it's almost like a point of reflection, it's ‘O que te trago do tempo que passou’. It is the fact that I came here, with what I bring as a person and as an artist, to arrive and to make a turning point, to leave it behind and to move on, illuminating because there is a lantern with a bright light, which is in a bubble, in a circle," the artist describes. The bearded figure carrying the lantern that lights the way forward is also symbolic, not representing anyone in particular. "It's a little of all of us, it's male, but could be female, and happens to have a beard and the rest. I think it's a being, it's not anyone in particular," the artist shares.
Sandra Abafa in "more adult" language
Sandra Abafa recalled that as soon as she received the invitation to come to Macau, she "strangely” felt that her language "had changed." "It used to be something much less adult, much less mature, I can’t really define it, but I think it has a little to do with having a different availability, having more time, losing more time or gaining it, it depends on the perspective, but I am devoting myself more to the technique, in the elaboration of the sketches, to the form". In the territory for the first time, Sandra Abafa says that the idea she had of this city remains, but now with additional information, of course. The idea that the artist had already imagined was that "although Macau is a city, that there was a silence of its own, a silence within the sound itself, basically that is the word, if it could be defined, the word was silence. Of course I had a vague idea that Macau was in Asia, but I had no idea that it was so Chinese and so Portuguese at the same time, that it was so frantic but at the same time with moments of pause," she added.
This is a work in progress, so until it is done, there is still room "to move". "What you are going to see is a type of a diary, about the places I’ve been, accompanied with the illustration. I also can’t say too much about it because it still isn’t complete, and until the work is completed everything can change. Sometimes I have things aligned and then, at any given moment, everything changes, I change the language and I change everything, in reality I don’t really know how it will be finalized," she shared.
The exhibition will bring together over 40 works, including Sandra Abafa's watercolours and the sculptures resulting from the project "Senhor de Si", co-founded and shared with her sister. "The idea of this project, "Senhor de Si", which is the denomination of 'open space of creativity', was to bring art to all, together with sculpture and illustration, we made sculptures, with ultra-light material, which are then suspended, they are all unique and have unique frames and it is a project which I had been involved in for 10 years when I left, and now with this trip to Macau we find ourselves in this work again, bringing a part of that project here," the artist explained.
