Between the Garden and the Mountain

Theodore Ereira-Guyer

Theodore Ereira-Guyer
Between the Garden and the Mountain
by Maria do Carmo M. P. de Pontes

‘The lockdown has encouraged us to be proactive rather than reactive’, Theodore Ereira-Guyer muses, in a simple yet accurate assessment of the last several months. For writers, this meant working on their ‘thing’, rather than commissions to magazines or newspapers; for architects, experimenting with form in their own terms; for artists such as himself, it meant creating a body of work grounded on risk-taking, without the pressure of art fairs, exhibitions and so on.

All the sculptures and paintings gathered in this presentation were produced while he was in confinement. In the early stages of the pandemic, the artist was in Brazil due to projects that, as of many others and for many others, were either postponed or cancelled. Having shared his time between England and Portugal for many years now, Ereira-Guyer then decided to ‘escape’ to the latter, quarantining in a studio situated amid a beautiful garden.

Etching is a long time favourite of the artist. If compositions here with this technique – as Garden, Mountains and Nevermore – seem at first to be a simple continuation of a lineage of such works, at closer inspection they reveal a twist. The artist has added a new step to their making process, which is evident in terms of a multicoloured, sort of tie-dye background. The mountain is a recurring motif in Ereira-Guyer’s compositions, serving as an emblem of the ungraspable – for we can never understand the real dimension of a mountain just by looking at it, unless from space. The garden, by turn, stands for the tamed – specially in a country like England, with a tradition of extremely cultivated gardens. Noteworthy, a positive collateral of the pandemic was to turn most of us into gardeners. And cooks, but that’s not relevant in the context.

A new series of acrylic on canvas collages seem to draw from the very idea of cultivated gardens. They consist on monochromatic backgrounds with layers of fabrics on top. These cutouts are geometric yet organic shapes, such as the circle, the square and the triangle, alluding to flower beds. They are small scale compositions, often with simply two colours; somehow they reminisce the tapestries and paintings by the late Roberto Burle Marx, a German-Brazilian landscape designer that is broadly admired for planning gardens with native Brazilian species rather than imported ones. The shape of these works is imperfect, as are its shredded edges, thus here again the artist blends notions of control and disorder that are at the heart of the show.

Completing the display are multicoloured acrylic paintings and plaster sculptures tinted in light blue – a favourite tone of the artist. These are pilled blocks titled Ruins, though they carry an ambiguity in relation to their true nature, leaving the viewer to decide whether they are ruins, as the artist suggests, or something still under-construction. They are also collages in their own terms, as they spam from the same building logic as the works described above; volumes placed together, negotiating spaces. Though we cannot grasp through the photos, they have a human scale, in direct dialogue with the artist’s own body.

Exhibition text by Maria do Carmo M. P. de Pontes (b. São Paulo, 1984. Lives and works in London). She has written for Flash Art and Art Review and has curated exhibitions at SP-Arte, Embassy of Brazil in London, Grand Palais Paris, ARCOmadrid, Pivô, Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, São Paulo Biennial, the Masters sector at SP-Arte 2020. In 2014, she founded Question Center, a nomadic platform of short exhibitions that draws on generational bonds among artists.

ARTWORK TITLES

Nevermore,
Etching,
77×112 cm,
2020

Between the garden and the mountain (garden gate),
Etching,
240×140 cm,
2020

Mountains,
Etching,
240×140 cm,
2020

The Garden,
Etching,
240×140 cm,
2020

Between here and there,
Oil on canvas,
52cmx47cm,
2020

Never again,
Etching,
77×112 cm,
2020

Moving garden,
Oil on canvas and acrylic on cotton,
30×40 cm,
2020

Still life on the wall,
Acrylic on canvas,
51cmx44cm,
2020

Garden drawing,
Acrylic on canvas,
45cmx36cm,
2020

Ruins,
Paint and plaster
,
171x67x45 cm

Garden (evening light),
Etching,
77×112 cm,
2020,
Edition of 3

Sky resting on earth and other worldly things (yellow fragments),
Acrylic on canvas,
50cmx37cm,
2020

As it was,
Acrylic on canvas,
44cmx39cm,
2020

Sky resting on earth and other worldly things (Blue fragments),
Acrylic on canvas,
50cmx45cm (44cmx37cm),
2020

Morning, Etching,
77×112 cm,
2020

Changing garden,
Acrylic on canvas,
56×42 cm,
2020

Ruins i,
Paint and plaster
,
168x34x20 cm

Summer with thoughts of sweet spring,
Acrylic on paper,
20×30 cm,
2020

Spring with thoughts of the Summer,
Acrylic on paper,
20×30 cm,
2020

Ever present face,
Acrylic on canvas,
48cmx31cm,
2020

Garden and landscape,
Oil on canvas,
50cmx44cm,
2020

Garden and landscape i,
Oil on canvas,
55cmx48cm (43cmx39cm)
2020

Ruins ii,
Paint and plaster

Never was,
Etching,
77×112 cm,
2020