Selected work

Spore

Subject: Abstract
Medium: Wood, Installation
Dimensions: 200cm x 400cm
Created: 2016

Artistically having worked on site-specific sculptures/installations in many countries around the world, it was natural for me to want to choose to work with cork, since Cork is native to Portugal. The desire to use cork became even more relevant when visiting the Pena Palace Gardens, Sintra, in connection with the project “Point of View” and seeing for the first time The Chalet of the Countess of Edla, with its extensive use of cork on both internal and external walls. Equally as important from an ecological perspective, I wished to highlight the fact that cork is a sustainable natural, renewable material that processes qualities far beyond those that we are most accustomed too. Because of this and its sustainability and “green- values” cork is not only a material with a past it is also a material with a secure future.

The commission story

Working with cork has always been a pleasure and at the same time, equally challenging. Due mainly to the fact that every piece is distinctly unique and aesthetically loaded with qualities of an individual nature. This unexpected aspect of cork makes it’s like no other renewably natural resource/material which suits the way I work artistically.

The outcome

The project seeks to duly commemorate the bicentenary of Ferdinand II, the “king-artist” and founder of the Park of Pena. Within this framework, this also seeks to enrichen the visitor experience through a renewed approach to the relationship between Man and Nature leading the former to “lose themselves” in the Park, its various different perspectives and “points of view”. The exhibition title, “Point of View”, stems precisely from the French expression Point de Vue, as used in landscape architecture to encapsulate the concept of perspective.

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