SOLO EXHIBITION, GEOMETRIES IN THE FEMALE BEING AND HER FREEDOM
Stratigraphic disclosure of emerging ideas
Feminism and identity underlie Teresa Carneiro’s eminently feminine work (Portugal 1977). Behind her images of melancholy, there is a latent revulsion that invites us to become aware of how today’s woman lives and shows herself – in developed societies -, empowered before the different spheres in which she develops, materialising each of her facets in a particular effigy that would act as a symbol or analogy.
In line with this predominant definition, obiter dictum, the historical anecdote that surrounded Matisse surfaces in my memory when in 1095 he presented, to the amazement of many, the wonderful work Woman with a Hat, a portrait of Amalie Matisse, a strong and determined woman who worked as a hatter to support her family before glory came to the brilliant painter.
Without the physiognomy of the portrait itself being a determining factor in the approach to the work, and following Mallarmé’s recommendation, Matisse painted his wife under his emblem of triumph, and that is, in essence, to give the painting a transforming capacity based on critical reasoning. Something similar occurs with the work of this artist.
The metaphorical connotations that Carneiro gives to each one of his creations require the support of our intellectual faculties in order to exert a notable influence. She grants them an external perfection that strips the work of its metaphysical character and this is interesting because of the overwhelming reality it represents: women looking at women.
With his work, Carneiro, he uses an imponderably beautiful figuration that highlights individual problems, through imaginary portraits that with their deep look challenge the viewer to imbue his psyche and empathize with the image beyond what he sees, and all this, he achieves through an extraordinary mastery of drawing and colour, which he uses on punched wood.
Sometimes we do not need to resort to encrypted images to reveal deep contents that speak of the needs that women continue to demand. Emotive figuration is called to be the bearer of social and political potential in post-modernity, the era in which a fourth wave of feminism is in force, starting with the second decade of the 21st century. That is, the era in which we live.
Patricia Bueno del Río
Marbella, november, 2020