In January, 2020, Renata started visiting the Former Slaughterhouse of Évora and the Pó de Vir a Ser ateliers. The purpose of those visits was quite simple: To prepare her Artistic Residency, within the scope of the Workshops of Possibility, and to initiate her first experiences with the raw materials.
Inspired by Rangoli – the Indian tradition of creating drawings on the floor to welcome the Diwali, an important Indian religious holiday that celebrates the victory of good over evil, light over darkness -. Renata Bueno began by welcoming 2020 by drawing with stone dust on the ateliers’ floors. It was January.
Stone dust drawings have an amazing glow and a duration that surpasses all expectations. The dust is heavy, it changes color with the rain, and isn’t blown away by the wind. After testing this technique with Indian sieves, Renata embarked on making her own drawings, using the screens of traditional sieves. The artist chose as her motifs several work tools and instruments that were at Pó de Vir a Ser, along with other abstract forms, “drawn from the real”, from the interpretation of that place.
The first drawings arose; the contrast between the white marble dust and coal; more new sieves. You couldn’t say it was an isolated process. Whilst working on this method, Renata Bueno developed other artistic approaches, that shared the common purpose of, eventually, creating a body of work that could be shared with the public, through the development of Artistic Experimentation Workshops that could be replicated by the Pó team — the Workshops of Possibility.
Then came March, and with it the state of emergency. During this period, Renata could no longer visit us as often. We decided to share, between us, photographs of the artist’s work that we would find in our space.
That’s when we received this text, written by Renata Bueno, on the subject of time. A time that is an emotion.
The full text can be read here https://podeviraser.pt/portal/2020/07/10/sobre-o-tempo-renata-bueno/
