‘Mustangs in the Valley’ 2014  Monotype 12x 16 cm

                                     

           Five Step Text. ‘On the artwork of António Rodrigues’ . 

A nursing nature. 

António Rodrigues is not only a man of  cultured wits but  country-wise as well. His workplace  is  installed  in the  basement of his home in Gent (Belgium).  A syitdown next to his  massive  lithographic  press, with a bottle of fine Portuguese wine at hand, might soon lead you on a talking trip through art history. Antonio’s inspirations are very present in his atelier.  Not only in books and  objects, but in the  whole of  the atmosphere. On the one  hand you'll  find many  green plants, nursed  generously and dedicatedly.  On the  other hand you'll find  yourself surrounded by a collection of artifacts collected on     long walks; feathers, branches, rocks, stones, minerals, dried ferns, all dead material. Dead material for many among us, but not for the artist. Because, in veins, curves, twists and turns, the material is still very much alive. His encounters with nature are absorbed  in his country-wise soul, as mentioned above, and thus in his art. His approach slightly brushes  Arte povera, but his art is not so easily defined, and most of all it is his own.  His persona  and  art are totally  embedded in the gift of life and its inherent lifelong struggle with inevitable death.

1oo years.

 António's early artist career started out with painting. Later he started etching and graphic printing.  Marvelously crafted and rich of detail, his dry etchings provide stories and reflections on life; e.g. on his youth growing up in a rural town in Portugal. Having moved from Angola to Portugal he soon realized there were many differences that would never be abridged.  Stranger in his own land,  he was forced into an attitude, but more importantly into an observing, contemplative view, picking up  intriguing stories from  his surroundings.  António’s early etchings made me think of Gabriel Garcia's writings in his ‘100 years of loneliness’; most probably  because  of the sweltering settings of these universal one image stories on manhood and rural life. Sensitive, witty and with an inclination for magical realism.

Look deep.

In his later work, the recent monoprints, António reaches a different level of communicating. He enters a more mystic and  symbolic level. The monoprints are landscapes. The landscapes delicately seem to have their own vibrance, a vibrant life inside the artwork.  Tapped from the soul, one might think. Rooted deep in personal experiences of contact with nature for sure. The landscapes come to life while looking at them.  They need the viewer to  play along.  From blots and  colourparts, and layers  of ink, your eye takes  your mind  by the  hand, and suddenly you start noticing even more dots, more lines and tingling details directing you into an open storyboard. Beyond this point there is a suspension of disbelief happening.  You will get drawn into  what  you  can believe to be a landscape.  Far away from dots and blots you enter misty valleys, with mustangs galloping away just before the horizon ‘Mustangs in the Valley’. Or a village, situated close to a river, a slow and sandy river  where  no boats  ever  pass  anymore.  Early morning tension. Church bells ready to chime. ’Almost morning in the Village’.  António cunningly tricks you into this process of suspension of  disbelief  by  presenting the monoprints under these well-chosen poetic titles, but only once and a while, because the majority of his works are called ‘untitled’. With these you are left on your own to puzzle them out. Energy found in surprise. Quite similar to turning a rock upside down and finding life underneath.

An artist must be free. 

António is a free artist in all senses, mostly because he doesn't accept the dictate of pure core-specialization from a commercial point of view. He  needs to keep an open eye,  he needs to experience different movements of the hand, he needs to learn, explore and specialize, which he does; in monotype, polymeerprint, sculpting, etching, and even in photography. A very multi-disciplinary research. Quite similar to the solitary mountainous walks that inspire him so much, he loves to be working in his studio without necessarily having a public audience in mind. This independent universalist cluster-approach is however influencing his way of handling the separate disciplines. You can feel the interwovenness, you can see at a given point how it all starts to connect.

A psychological Tilt and Shift.

António's work escapes from everyday logic in a very natural way. It is living matter that resists to be caught in convention.  Full of lust, and fierce,  his works  span from mystic lightness up to symbolic darkness. The recent monoprints laid out by António Rodrigues have a strong ability to communicate symbolically. You need time to read the work and discover traces of the artists’ investigation of his own mental boundaries. The works are very personal  and open. The artist and  the viewer make a connection. Together  they cross the thin line between suggestion and interpretation. The works are designed to have an emotional effect and to cause a tilt and shift from the rational to the regions of the subliminal. But this transition can only take place through the experience of pure aesthetics. Which happens in this work.  Firmly, silently, surely.

Text: Peter Waterschoot, March 2014.Gent, Belgium.