ENTRE DOIS MUNDOS

-Mulher e homem , cúmplices do oceano …-

From Story to History 

Alexandre Nobre Pais

Director of the National Azulejo Museum of Lisbon

The sea and those who derive their livelihood from it are central aspects of the Ovar region, so it's no surprise that this theme has found resonance in the work being developed in tile art by Bastien Tomasini, a.k.a. The Gringo.. In the case of his works, an interesting paradox arises. The application of tiles in architectural space, which is indeed their primary purpose, creates the idea that these coverings constitute a kind of skin or tattoo on the buildings where they are placed. In the works developed by The Gringo, tile patterns emerge on the skin of his models, evoking tattoos that reverberate this idea, demonstrating that the beauty of these motifs can also find a place on bodies, which themselves compose a narrative. Among the new artists currently working on tile art and proposing different paths based on previous experiences, The Gringo is the one who comes closest to the narrative conception of the Baroque period. It is in the late 17th century, but with greater strength in the first half of the 18th century, that we witness tile art gaining a descriptive dimension. This can reach levels of great iconological complexity, but basically consists of a succession of scenes that compose part of a story, implying a more participatory dimension on the part of the observer, requiring interactivity in understanding and comprehending the pictorial message represented. The Gringo employs this concept, adapting each of his compositions to a story and sometimes associating them with musical sounds rooted in Fado. These are narratives about love, which the sea unites but also separates, and about people who depend on it, dimensions that find in Ovar a privileged place to be told and remembered. In this exhibition, The Gringo's pieces present a dimension that transcends figuration. In them, the artist projects splashes, a reference to Jackson Pollock, but which create, over the immaculate figurative representation, a more dynamic and vital dimension of street art, which is ultimately its aesthetic origin. Through this movement, we feel that beneath the placid surface of beautiful faces, bodies, and hands, emotions and tensions stir, pulsating and driving the actions of those portrayed. This interference in the images makes the artist present; we feel his restlessness, his disquiet, a startle that forces us to look more closely at the representation and see beyond the undeniable beauty of the images. As the proverb goes, "still waters run deep," and on the surface of the bodies, where reflections of tile art from the region are mirrored, depicting the daily lives of people connected to the sea, there is a search, a quest for a path, the finding of "a north" that the compass rose punctuates, an eye that seeks the boat that allows departure or even return... And as always, in the narratives that The Gringo constructs, it is the Woman who plays the main role, she is the protagonist from whom the story unfolds. No panel expresses better what is at stake here than the one where the "ovarina" emerges in shadow, the woman from Ovar whose life is linked to the sea and gave rise to the adjective "varina." Those whose lives are entangled in constant toil and love for their parents, siblings, children, and beloved ones who always leave and not always return. Those who consolidate the family in absences and share it in presences, always entwined in an existence that imprisons them but which the sea does not bend, rather strengthens in routine and pain. What The Gringo's vision gives us is archetypal beauty, that which exists beyond what the sea, salt, sand, wind, and sun wear down and corrode. The characterful beauty of those who face the elements, adversity, and grow old while still young. Their stories gain here, in these tile panels, not the logic of a document, but a sense of epic that restores to them the heroic dimension, the greatness of those remembered by History, who always appear in our imagination, young and beautiful, undaunted by adversity and setbacks, just as The Gringo portrays and immortalizes them.

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