Marta Moura

The painting Natureza Morta (Lixo) is composed by six canvases of various dimensions, leaning against each other and against the wall, and placed directly on the floor – an organization that refers directly to what they interpret. The objects are realistically reproduced, almost photographically, with microscopic minutia, and their dimensions are ruled by a 1:1 scale, as if it were a duplication of the objects. The exercise of painting starts from a careful observation. But… which objects are to be focused? Which pictures are to be portrayed? Which landscape is to be touched? In an artistic context that does not separate the theoretical proposition from the picture, the questioning of the direction of the gaze is decisive for the present artistic production. The still life, the portrait, and the landscape, representing the three classical genres of painting that, in Marta Moura’s proposal, are united in a forcefully updated synthesis. The portrayed theme that can be easily recognized is part of our daily life: trash. Everything that we reject, everything that is in excess of our daily life, is accumulated, stocked, piled up, and distributed, occupying the fringes of the cities. The artistic mediation consisted in the process of distinguishing those elements (trash bags, cardboard boxes, rejected objects) from its context. The representation of a daily situation – trash arranged into compositions reminding us of still lifes found in urban landscapes, the portrait of our contemporary nature –, configured in the set of paintings that are placed together in Natureza Morta (Lixo), claims for these elements a reading that places them in the field of criticism.