A COUPLE OF STRUCTURING AND LIQUID THINGS

Everything is impermanent, yin which is the expansive force gives rise to yang which is the con- tractive force and yang gives rise to yin incessantly.

It seems and following this law that governs all things and that I learnt in the study of Macrobiotics and that has been serving me as a beacon in the observation of phenomena, that all structures fail, even the most perfect ones.

Everything sooner or later changes into its complementary opposite, just as day gives rise to the night, and this knowledge can bring some unease, softened by the apparent certainty that there is a spirit that is eternal, ever-present and that animates all things.

By embodying this truth, we get a huge sense of freedom that allows us to let go and believe that there is something that sustains everything, and nothing is going to disappear. Lavoisier said, “In Nature, nothing is created, nothing is lost, everything is transformed” and by saying nothing is created, everything is transformed, I recognise the spontaneous creation of matter and life. Nothing is lost, because the process of transformation has to do with the way we interpret it and that does not mean that something has disappeared, it is just a mechanism of the mind in the search to create a mental structure of stability.

It is true that without structure there are no roots and that if we apply or use too much structure we stifle the magic, and it begins to diminish. However, if we hold on to the structure like one holds a kite in the wind, we can play with it, let go, pull loose, lead, be led.

It is in this movement, similar to a dance, that I compose with circles, curves, lines, and colours, like a child who lets himself be transported by magic, with control, but also driven by the creative spirit to allow the unknown to manifest itself and, through this fusion, find the right balance, the one that will be crystallised. This process is a constant exercise of expansion and contraction, which never ends.

Creating artwork for me is like creating life, I hold myself loosely to strong structures, but I leave the door open so that the wind of the spirit can play and let the magic be transferred, not through intellectual certainty, which often presses me, but through sincere delight, I would say the love of the creative spirit.

It seems to me that it is through this magical process that I begin to live as myself, to understand through creation, through drawing, sculpture or painting, my own Being, my structure, and the influence of the wind (it brings me back to the concept of feng-shui).

There are thousands of processes so that people can live being themselves, and this is just one more, maybe mine, but I believe, however, that when we see the processes of others, when we contemplate an artwork, something awakens our process, so that it is capable of triggering that transformation.

In each work, there is delivery without pretension to obtain a certain result, but to see structures and systems fail, waiting for any kind of change to take place, to access future consciousness, a kind of illumination or self-realisation. The artwork should not allow the magical energy to remain trapped or limited to the structure that contains it, but rather to allow its release.

Acácio Viegas