INVERTED TIMELINE - PEDRO GOMES

Untitled (2020) is the latest series of drawings carried out by artist Pedro Gomes for the exhibition Encontro às Cegas [Blind Date], at the National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC), in Lisbon. It consists of eight white, square drawings, measuring 140 cm by 140 cm, arranged in two rows of four, one on top of the other, forming a panel that is 280 cm tall and 560 cm long. Through the accumulation of images taken from reality, this time representations of different kinds of exhibition spaces, the artist initially designs a rational spatiality determined by a precise and refined methodology. However, he then intervenes in the drawings with emotional incisions that rescue the drawn images and bring them into the sensitive, sensory field. But how is this transition from the rational to the emotional achieved? What is the precise project and what is the sensitive field? Where do the images and methodology used come from? These are some of the potential questions raised by the description of the most recent series of drawings carried out by the artist. Thus, considering that the result of a certain artistic work is more the consequence of the path taken than a unique moment of creation, it is necessary to revisit the artist’s previous works in order to understand the moment in which certain ideas or solutions emerged. Accordingly, we will be able to revive the memory so that frequently generated forms can awaken to a timeless concept.

The yellow drawings Untitled (2019), also presented in the exhibition Blind Date, at the MNAC, carry within themselves some of the themes that have regularly featured in the artist’s work, namely: the representation of buildings and urban landscapes; white incisions on yellow backgrounds; and the methodical framing of images, some centred in the middle of the sheet of paper and others functioning like a seemingly infinite pattern. Both of these approaches, having been used previously, bring reality into a two-dimensional space, using the field of drawing to map the real. This delimitation of the artistic discipline conceives a force internal to the drawing itself, which expands its limits and questions the spectator about what they are seeing and how they can see. The buildings and urban landscapes depicted by the artist become structures that tend towards the abstraction of reality as a form of transcendence or dystopia.

The series of drawings Untitled (2019) that form the panel A Óptica do Utilizador [The Viewpoint of the User], presented in Appleton Square, in 2019, were exhibited in a square room, thus consolidating the key points of the discussion of the white cube model developed by the artist in previous works. In this case, the type of visualisation generated by the occupation of three whole walls of the room allows for the investigation of the gallery and the way in which this austere place determines how we perceive the images on display. Each white drawing from the group of 34 that make up the whole panel represents a museographical model different to that in which they are displayed. This dissonance, amplified by the overlapping of images and, in some cases, a pattern of white noise, is also very relevant to questioning the screen as a technology of looking. This premise is present in the removing, tearing up and crossing out of parts of the paintings represented in the exhibition rooms. These ideas and images also feature in the series of drawings Untitled (2018) displayed in the exhibition Um Quarenta [One Forty] at Galeria Diferença in 2018. This time, although the yellow drawings are presented on mobile structures in the middle of the exhibition space, the images were taken from museum spaces of the end of the 19th century. This paradox, between types of museography, is reflected in the attention given in equal measure to the importance of the images, museum structures and surrounding space. The discipline of drawing expands into a sensory appropriation of the spatial experience and is no longer limited to the two-dimensional space of the sheet of paper. The way that both series – One Forty and The Viewpoint of the User – discuss the surrounding space was anticipated by the work Panorama (2018), presented at the Drawing Room by Galeria Presença. Panorama consisted of a large panel that occupied the entire stand at the fair, using all three walls, including the two corners. The drawings were composed of various overlapping images, which contained depictions of buildings, vegetation and patterns, favouring the incessant noise of screens, as if it were a non-image. In the series of drawings that made up the panel displayed in the exhibition Urbe [City], in the Arpad Szenes – Vieira da Silva Museum, in 2018, there was also a proliferation of overlapping images, namely the combination of buildings and vegetation. However, unlike the drawings presented in Panorama, those from the Urbe series were subsequently subject to an intervention by the artist. By crossing out and tearing up small parts of the drawing, the artist privileges and hierarchises vision, highlighting and revealing certain parts of the representation. These choices also featured in the panel of yellow drawings that was presented at the exhibition 16 de Setembro [September 16] at Galeria Presença, in Porto, in 2017. Like the yellow panel in Blind Date, the drawings of buildings and structures oscillate between the infinite pattern and the finite object. Different visualisations of the group of drawings, perhaps between the near and the far, allow the spectator a certain sensory experience. These sensations, before the larger scale of the work’s dimensions and the smaller scale of the depicted buildings, reside somewhere between hopeful curiosity and latent repulsion.

The works presented in the two exhibitions Inscape, at Galeria Presença, in Porto, and A Torre [The Tower] at Galeria Miguel Nabinho, in Lisbon, carried out in 2016, were the starting point for the next stage in the artist's journey. In The Tower, the colour yellow appeared for the first time as a background in drawings of buildings. Colour psychology associates yellow with insanity, which links the rigorous, demented mythology of the drawings to psychological disorders. In the same exhibition, the trunks of palms and other trees appear as one-dimensional foci that occupy the whole of the (black) page, as if the image were being revealed by the incision and destruction of the plane that illuminates it. In Inscape the sophisticated and complex drawing of cacti explodes onto the sheet of black paper as if wanting to reveal the entrails and impurities of which it consists. The appearance of the image is intoxicating and captivates the observer. There also appears to be a dimension of insanity in the meticulous execution of capturing the almost impossible drawing of a cactus.

The interior and intimate gaze that the drawings of cacti enable seem to have originated in the series of photographs presented in the exhibition Campo Grande, at the Pavilhão Branco, and the woodworks of the exhibition ID, at Galeria 111, both in Lisbon in 2011. On the one hand, the photographs demonstrated a concern for what is deep inside the paper which, when torn, revealed the rarefied material of which it is made. On the other hand, the black wooden boards concentrated the gaze on the thin, excavated cut revealed in the images. This process of removing layers of the wood is what gave rise to the artist's current drawings; it is in the way that part of the material – paper or wood – is removed that the image becomes visible. This cutting of the image also manifests, in a more obvious way, in the work Untitled, which the artist carried out in 2010 for the staircase of the LUX nightclub, in Lisbon. This time, the relationship between form and background accentuates a drawing of a person who does not hear, does not see and does not speak. The contradiction of this expression with the idea of nightlife is painfully obvious and ironic. Here, the experience of cutting out the image from its background, despite having been used previously, formally reaches is peak.

In 2009 and 2008, the idea of a group of drawings arranged on panels was explored in different ways in four different exhibitions. In all cases, the technique of execution consisted of perforating the paper from behind, thus making a blind drawing, in other words, making a drawing without seeing the end result. This technique was used for the last time in these works and reveals how, with a skilful execution, a complex concept emerged in the creation of images through their concealment. In the exhibition Amnésia [Amnesia], in Galeria 111, the panel Untitled (2009) was composed of various drawings of cuttings from gossip magazines formally arranged with black and white patches. This formality contrasted with the random effect of the reproduced images and the perforations that gave it shape. In the project Atelier (2009), presented in the Empty Cube, the panel transformed into an accumulation of drawings that were not entirely visible. In this case, a black and white photograph of a group of cacti presented the spectator with an enigma, namely, what image or images are behind all the space filled with barely visible black drawings? The group of drawings entitled TEC (2008) was exhibited in the Ash Room of the Electricity Museum in Lisbon. Here, images related to automotive technology were shown using grey pieces of paper, on which they appeared in different shades of yellow. For the first time, albeit subtly, the colour yellow appeared in the work of the artist as a way of stubbornly, and also with a kind of madness, revealing the complexity of the drawing. While in these three successive works – Amnésia, Atelier and TEC –, the panel of drawings was flat, that is, two-dimensional, the work Finisterra (2008), exhibited in the Espírito Santo Convent, in Loulé, demonstrated a previously explored idea, the use of a corner, thus producing a three-dimensional work that occupies the exhibition space. The image was another large-scale urban landscape, which appears to submerge the spectator with its three-dimensionality.

Using this technique of perforating the back of paper, the artist also produced: From Combat to Leisure (2008), for the exhibition at Elvas Contemporary Art Museum – António Cachola Collection; and the works Untitled (2007) presented in the exhibition Imagens Impressas [Printed Images], at Filomena Soares Gallery. On the one hand, the sobriety of the set of four drawings – three black sheets and one white – of the work From Combat to Leisure reflects on the power of the image as the vehicle of a potential narrative: using the group of three white drawings on black paper of trainers and skateboards in contrast to a what appears to be a hand grenade in black on white paper. By revealing such a latent formalism, the artist focusses on a premise of the gaze on the works and on the object that is represented and seen. This contrasts with the pictorial exuberance of the series of drawings Untitled, in which various images like buildings, portraits, groups of people and urban landscapes appear on white pieces of paper, revealed with an intoxicating palette of colours that dignifies the simple depicted image. As the images are printed on the back of the paper, the unexpected work is only revealed at the end of the whole process, a surprise, albeit controlled and manipulated by the hand of the artist, revealing the surprising world of images in which we live.

The exhibition Contacto [Contact] (2004), in the Coimbra Círculo de Artes Plásticas, revealed certain elements that the artist had developed up until that point, namely the use of fire to draw, and images of portraits and hands, which he came to explore later on. The exhibition also featured a panel composed of six drawings which, building on this research, are each revealed as an individual object that makes up part of the whole. In the first instance, fire emerges as a paradoxical way of making the image appear, not only because it destroys and burns what is visible, transforming it into ashes, but because the drawing is done on the back, so that the artist cannot see the image he is producing. In order to solve a technical problem, related to the outline of the image, this was the first time that the artist drew on the back of the paper. In the second instance, the figures and characters portrayed in the drawings demonstrate emotional contact, indicating a desire to combine the concept of fire with the idea of contact between two people. This happy union is another good example of how the artist tends to combine the technique used with the image that is reproduced.

This combination of technique and image also appears to feature in the project Ter [To Have] (2005), presented at the National Museum of Ancient Art in Lisbon and the Grão Vasco Museum, in Viseu. In this case, the exhibition featured a panel of various images in which the subject, perhaps the artist himself, poses with objects very similar to those belonging to the museum. The black drawings on a white background, without three-dimensional modelling, question the relationship between form and background among the objects represented and displayed in the museum and their everyday or extravagant uses. By showing these humorous images, the artist calls into question the rigorous cut out of the form against the neutral, white background. The irony seems even greater when the images are displayed in the museum on large panels and in direct relation to the present museography. This understanding, between the image and the place in which it is presented, was used by the artist at the same time in the project Palleiros (2005), created for the Chocolataría, in Santiago de Compostela. On this occasion, the artist did large-scale drawings of guard dogs, using the contrast between form and background evident in the previous project. However, this time, the black was made with small pieces of rubbish, dust, earth and small stones from the art centre’s outdoor space.

The project Calçada da Ajuda 222 (2003) was done in an abandoned house, and the artist’s subsequent works in the same year, entitled Masturbações [Masturbations], first demonstrated some of the concerns described previously, which originated here: the relationship between form and background; the technique of gathering and collage of dirt and debris; and the linking of works to the surrounding space. The artist effectively used the space of an abandoned house to produce drawings of lost boys, hiding away to masturbate. The artist produces his drawings in surprising places, directly on the wall, using dirt and rubbish found in his own house, to create somewhat ghostly figures that populate the space of the dwelling. In this case, not only is the technique of gathering materials and sticking them to the wall associated with the idea of abandonment and encounter with these stray characters, forging a connection between the public and private space, but the images also seem to be connected to the very same space in which they are presented, a place of burgeoning decadence and instability.

In the previous exhibition, entitled Vá para fora cá dentro [Go outside here inside] (2002), at Filomena Soares Gallery, in Lisbon, the artist presented two distinct series interlinked by their technical dimension. For the first time, the measurement of 140 cm, which the artist has worked with systematically ever since, appears for practical reasons, because the iron sheets used in these works were 150 cm long and a margin of 5 cm was necessary to fold each edge. In both series exhibited – Piscina [Swimming Pool] (2002) and Montanha [Mountain] (2002) – the drawing in white plastic paint is done on the textured and oxidised surface of the iron support. This time, the artist did the opposite of what he went on to do subsequently. The white drawing is neutral; there seems to be an inversion in which the intervention of the artist is in the background that supports the image. Through oxidisation and chemical processes, the iron background takes on a life of its own on a random and uncontrolled surface. This gap between form and background appears to reveal a domain of intoxicating images, one moment of mountains with snow, the next of swimming pools and their usual surroundings.

The works Paraíso [Paradise] (2000) were presented at the artist’s first solo exhibition in Galeria Presença, entitled Acesso [Access] (2001). In them, the artist intervenes directly on chrome iron sheets with drawings of palm trees, which he also drew in 2018. In these first interventions on iron, which anticipated the works exhibited in Go outside here inside, the image appears through an action of corrosion of the material itself, as if there were a distance between the hand and the final image, mediated by an external action. We find this same distance in the drawings Linha de Fogo [Line of Fire] (2000), presented in the exhibition Controle Remoto [Remote Control] (2001), at the Museum of Contemporary Art, in São Tiago Fortress, in Funchal, and shown in the exhibition Blind Date, at the MNAC. The images of people holding cameras and video cameras seem to destroy their own visuality, through the excess of images that they themselves capture. These works were the first in which the artist used fire as a drawing tool with which he makes an image appear. This effect contradicts the idea of fire as destructive and detrimental to what is visible, turning images into ashes.

The series of drawings Untitled (1998), presented at the exhibition Acesso, reveals a set of chairs made out of melted rubber. This was the first time that the artist conceived images without any three-dimensional modelling; the contrast between form and background was created with the black of the image in relation to the white of the sheet of paper. This two-dimensionality reinforces the idea of an image which is built by filling in the limits of its outlines. The images of chairs in various arrangements – aligned or in a circle, sometimes two, sometimes three or more – reveal a methodology of precise and lengthy experimentation, in which the process appears to be more important than the final result. This experimental methodology seems to have had a significant impact on the lengthy and systematic processes that the artist has developed over the course of his career.

In the series Untitled (1997) the artist, who trained as a sculptor, reveals a final work which connects three-dimensionality to the two-dimensionality that he would go on to research. In these works, which are also presented in the exhibition Blind Date, at the MNAC, human figures appear for the first time in silhouettes of faces made from aluminium, a material that he was also using for the first time. By removing the identity of these human figures they become undifferentiated people that get lost in the crowd. Like in later drawings, dehumanisation imposes an idea in which the excess of images and their technologies of reproduction inhibit long-lasting emotional and sentimental encounters: in other words, fugacity as inherent to contemporaneity.

The drawings Untitled of the series Habitar [Inhabit] (1997) and from the previous work I’m afraid I’m not here at the moment, but you can leave a message after the beep… (1996) were the first two-dimensional works carried out by the artist, although they seem to be concerned with the spatial sphere. The interior spaces and urban landscapes drawn using a tangle of circular marks form an image that is deciphered little by little, in which new visions and common threads are discovered. These same threads seem to be literally present in the sculpture Estarei Sempre Contigo [I Will Always Be With You] (1995). Using a wide range of threads – electric wires and plastic tubes, among others – the artist shapes a giant ring that acts as a vortex, not just for the space that surrounds it, but above all for the gaze of the spectator. In both cases – drawings and sculpture – the works captivate and intoxicate the gaze as an emotional and sensory way of establishing a more intimate and promising contact. It is precisely in the establishment of this relationship, between the gaze and the depicted image, that the work of the artist has been produced, from these early works, featured in the exhibition Blind Date, at the MNAC, to the more recent drawings of the series Untitled (2020) which close this display.

While time does not go backwards, nor do events of the past serve as oracles of the future, the determination of the importance of various factors, details and signs that artworks entail may reveal that only later, at a given moment, without intention or premeditation, these factors appear and bring with them a story, an emotion, or simply a small consideration, which makes all the difference. Perhaps accordingly, the persistence and perseverance found in the artworks of Pedro Gomes over time are what awakens us to other visible images, that is to say, to another world.

Hugo Dinis

Lisbon, February 2020