— a bas-relief of nature
by Madalena Marques
I studied architecture (a subject that I’m very interested in) and I have been in the profession until now. However, I always had the tendency for exploring other ways of creative expression, such as drawing, painting or ceramics, and have been developing it in the last few years. I never called myself an “artist” (maybe because I was not very confident about my work and didn’t have a degree in fine arts), but this passion and willingness to create has always been present, and I feel it growing as I develop my artistic work in ceramic. This collaboration with Muti Collective was a significant point in my artistic journey, in which I felt the recognition and support I needed to move forward.
I found Muti accidentally when I was checking my Instagram and my attention was automatically caught by the post about the open call for artists. I started reading more about it and I remember that I found interesting the connection between art, nature, and this virtual world that was kind of a mystery to me. I had heard very superficially about cryptocurrencies and NFTs, and actually, it was something that I was very curious about but didn’t understand so well. Also, the idea that I had in mind was that it would be something directed to digital art, and not so much for a ceramic artists. I completely reviewed myself in art and the nature theme, and although I didn’t understand virtual reality so well, I decided to go ahead with a proposal.
When I received the email saying that my proposal had been chosen, I was thrilled! My initiatives to promote and share my art with others are relatively new, and winning the Muti stipend proved to be an important event to give me more confidence in my start-up in the artistic field.
After a meeting where I could better understand the concept of cryptocurrencies and how it works in practice, I also had the opportunity to participate in a free workshop provided by Muti and Incubadora, about NFT creation. It was very interesting to understand more deeply the fundamentals that are the base of this virtual world. The availability and ability to explain it in a clear way, all the doubts that someone like me, totally new to these concepts, would have, was amazing.
I always had a lot of support from the team, and regarding the artwork, I was given total confidence to develop it freely.
My proposal consisted of the creation of tile panels with the theme of the natural landscape of Sintra coast, in an approach that values the process of exploration of different aesthetic and technical forms, and with the intention of knowing this natural territory in a deeper way. From this idea emerged “Tiles from Landscape”.
The project was developed in several phases, which did not have an exact order, but happened organically and according to the work development.
I started from the observation of nature with attention focused on several aspects, such as form, materiality, textures, the dynamics of transformation and interaction with the environment, etc. In this exploration, I collected elements, raw materials, and textures, and made use of photography as a goal-focused record.
During my walks on Sintra beaches, my attention was drawn to the aesthetic richness that can be found on the rocks. Mussels, barnacles, seaweed, as well as the textures that remain after the fishermen catch them. From photography, I moved on to drawing, in which I focused on the representation of nature’s patterns and the full-scale representation. Through drawing, I moved on to tile painting, in which I freed the rigid line of the real representation for the fluidity of the brush. I adopted a style of loose brushstrokes with movement, which also reminds me of the fluidity of water, undulation, and the strong wind.
I felt that it also made sense to have a more realistic record of that texture, like a photograph or print of it, that contrasted with the painting, abstracted from reality. I made several visits to Magoito beach, carrying clay slabs from which I collected various bas-reliefs with the intention of transforming them into tiles.
Finally, I was still missing the approach in which I use nature as a source of raw material, and decided to take an experiment I had already started, in which I used clay from the beach cliffs to obtain colorants to paint the ceramics. Surprisingly, the ochre to brown coloured clay, after being fired, resulted in the reddish tone that punctuates the final works.
It was a process of discovery, of trial and error. Ceramic is an unpredictable art, dependent on various factors that can be controlled only to a certain extent, such as the drying process, the firing, the chemical reactions of the materials, etc., and the use of natural raw materials increases this unpredictability even more. I tried not to let myself get carried away by perfectionism and to see this project as a process of experimentation and discovery, whose final result is a composition that embraces all the investigation.
I see the realization of these 4 panels as the closing of one phase, and the beginning of the next. It is a work that I intend to continue. Just as nature is infinite, so is “Tiles from Landscape”, with infinite possibilities of territories, raw materials, forms and compositions.
