o super-cortina / the super-curtain Acrylic on canvas 150 x 120 cm, 2009 |
o homem invisível / the invisible man Acrylic on canvas 120 x 160 cm, 2009 |
o sétimo anão / the seventh dwarf Acrylic on canvas 170 x 130 cm, 2008 |
a cigarra e a formiga / the grasshopper and the ant Acrylic on canvas 160 x 120 cm, 2009 |
É tarde, muito tarde! / It's late, very late! Acrylic on canvas 150 x 100 cm, 2009 |
o voo do porco / the flight of the pig Acrylic on canvas 150 x 110 cm, 2009 |
princesas / princesses Acrylic on canvas 120 x 140 cm, 2008 |
cuidado com a maçã / be careful with the apple Acrylic on canvas 110 x 150 cm, 2008 |
Fictícios (Fictitious) is about characters belonging to an imaginary world that were evoked until they were so tangible that they became our front neighbour.
They are characters from a collective memory. Protagonists who, safe in a fictional world, would retain their special characteristics, but who, by coming into contact with the everyday life, become fictitious and continue their transformation until they become normal individuals in common places.
The time of the extraordinary superhero, or of the fantastic dwarf has been replaced by the time of the individual, with whom we irredeemably identify. The present individual is captured by the photographic instant, then converted into a pictorial image.
There are two dimensions at stake. On the one hand the approach to collective memory through the recovery of the protagonist characters of classic tales or stories; on the other hand the frozen instant of a daily situation. The overlapping of these two dimensions (fiction-reality) apparently antagonistic presents us with a series of questions. Is actuality a fiction, the reality of the characters that inhabit the images? or are the stories, the classic narratives, the foundations of our education, and unquestionable inhabitants of our imaginary more real?
The idea of using and naming classic storytelling figures to make these images belongs to the origin of the process, characters whose identity has been diluted in the very act of painting. That is where the times are separated. If these figures from the collective memory belong to the time of narration, where their main characteristic is to serve as moral symbols, when they are translated into the time of the image, they lose their moral burden to gain in aesthetic sense. The fictional characters are now current individuals, subjects living in a normal situation. Are they now more or less fictitious?
This set of images shows a reality that is desired to be recognizable, close to the experience of the spectator who visits them, hence the scenes are located in domestic interiors, streets, waiting rooms,? The stories to which they refer are also common.
Fictitious plays with codes that are readable to the spectator, to find a connection that identifies them with the series of images that, besides the aesthetic enjoyment, walk them to a close memory, and to the very vision of them-self. The individual is presented to them-self within a fictional reality.
Joana Lucas
Berlin, March 2009