SECTION THIRTEEN
THE ART PAGE 

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COLUMN SEVENTY-THREE, JULY 1, 2002
(Copyright © 2002 The Blacklisted Journalist)



Paula Marta da Cruz 
Born in Porto on the 12th of September 1961.

Edited book of Poetry 
Book of poetry, "Mutant Conscience", published in Rio de Janeiro, 1997.

PICTURES FROM THE UNCONSCIOUS

"Painting is experienced instinctively. It evokes an image felt at each moment. The absolute, the
spiritual touch, the healing is included in the interactive gesture of knowledge and the search for
myself." 

SPOKEN THEME - SPIRITUALITY 
MESSAGE - GESTURE

- The pain which is expelled in opposite directions. 
- The tension which runs through us. 
- Lost emotion, anger transformed into a chaotic silence.

The Soul which seeks a spiritual consciousness to free itself from fear and pain.

The life which drives me.

Suddenly an icy reality of molecules inhaled by the ecclesiastic womb runs through me in a premature realisation.

I contract without contradicting myself, 
I expand until finding myself. 

I speculate between blood and love, 
the intensity of red 
the thickness of heat, 
corrupting sleeping liberty 
being, 
the apotheosis generated by my clamour 
which blossoms in a secular release, 
awakening at the end of time. 



WHAT DO PAINTINGS SPEAK OF?

Books are sheets of paper painted with ink, certainly, and this was, in a more sceptical moment, the poets view.

What then is painting? Canvases written with colours?

Between the river Douro and the old narrow alleys of a riverside of muggings, drugs and night restaurants the painters large and luxurious canvases hide. She
has her refuge in a house, which has been perched on one side of the valley since the sixteenth century. The house once served as an inn for kings, criminals,
and men armed with swords and cloaked in capes, but more recently shippers offices.

Inhabited by rats, the silence of former shippers offices surrenders to the beautiful view of the river, winding sinuously within an atmosphere of oriental smoke,
music and hanging overcoats. It is here that the canvases wonder at their presence, leaning against a heavy silence and staring at one another: What are we
doing here? 

Is the size of the canvases indicative of the painters yearnings? Does this matter?

Does human life mean anything when the gentle curve of a river may be spied sadly from a window at dusk?

What is the meaning of the canvases secretly abandoned there before and now exhibited?

The bright colours, always bright, of an expressionism marked by emotion and spirituality. Almost physiological idiosyncrasies traced in acrylic, plaster, enamel,
charcoal, varnish, pigments, tar, glue and various objects - self-taught, mixed techniques breathing incense. The spontaneous mysticism of the colours: shapeless
images, forms with waning colours.

Are they without meaning?

Replies the painter: "The universe watches us because we are watching it and adds that she paints with her soul."

And the black shape of feminine hands joined in prayer eyes us from a painting with all the humility of a silent resignation.
The impressive image comes to mind of a uterus and a brain connected by an umbilical cord. An enormous oblique look, patiently waiting and growing within that
silent pregnancy. It is as if the fetus is merely awaiting its turn to enter a world whose secret meaning is contained in the huge yellow gauche question mark which
reproduces the internal contours of its generating womb: vagina, uterus, embryo.

Replies the painter: The squalid brilliance of the dream which shames the virginity of the seed which consumes us, returning the sensation of living to me.

What do the paintings speak of to me?

It is with colours that they are heard in my ears. But what does all this matter if I can see the curve of the window facing the river with the same calm indifference of
the canvases leaning against each other and condemned to silence. I wonder what they will be saying among themselves? What will they be thinking of me and of
the river? 

Pedro Barbosa

To view paintings by Paula Cruz, please click on

http://www.paulacruz.net

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