Today I went for a visit organized by ArCo, Centro de Arte e Comunicacao Visual to the Lisbon studio of the famous abstract artist Vitor Pomar.
It was the first time I went for this type of a visit and it was just beautiful to see the working space and works in process by an artist whose paintings I had previously seen in museums, mainly in Fundacao Gulbenkian.
Vitor took advantage of the many strong arms available to move around paintings between the studio and the storage.
His paintings are huge, all in acrylics and very colourful after a brief black and white period in the 60/70’s.
Generally, I have difficulty engaging with abstract art, and so also with Vitor Pomars oevre, especially the very colourful ones with very varied marks. I felt more attracted to the newer works with fewer marks and mainly one colour of marks on one colour of background, like the ones being moved above.
He works on linen, and on this particular one on the floor that looked very different from most other works, he used a transparent gesso to let the linen shine through, an idea that I really liked and will use:
It was interesting to feel how my perception shifted when Vitor described the work and the titles. This last series is the one I could engage most with- titled 9/11 about the falling twin towers:
It was an exciting and inspiring visit and I would love to move around paint on huge canvases in a huge space like Vitors 🙂
Clara's Drawing 2 