Joaquim Marques' watercolors invite contemplation, evoking a dreamlike imaginary that sometimes refers to an oriental aesthetic. He likes to work on large-format papers lying on the floor, using mop and duster to put water and paint. Walking on top of the still wet paper I can...
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Joaquim Marques' watercolors invite contemplation, evoking a dreamlike imaginary that sometimes refers to an oriental aesthetic. He likes to work on large-format papers lying on the floor, using mop and duster to put water and paint. Walking on top of the still wet paper I can observe and feel the image appearing under my feet on the still wet paper.
In the watercolor he is interested in the unpredictability and randomness of water as a generator of fictional memories of landscapes. Over time, memories tend to fade. It is in this moment of transformation, when the sharpness of the memories is irretrievably lost, that they acquire a new quality. The volatility of the water transforms faded spots into poetic images of Nature and allows leaving white spaces on paper as if it were memory failures. The watercolor is, paraphrasing the writer Guimarães Rosa and according to the artist, "working memory in its solid, liquid and gaseous state".
