ARTIST SAYS HE IS “DISAPPOINTED” WITH THE ‘G’

Although he has lived in Australia for 18 years, Luís Geraldes maintains his connection to the region where he was born. Luís Geraldes is an artist originally from the municipality of Fundão, raised in Angola, and these days he is in Guarda to execute a work that will be installed in the Algarve town of Quarteira later this month. It is a steel sculpture, four meters high, created for a public competition he won in June of last year. The piece represents the connection between the sky and the earth, featuring elements such as a bird, a nest, an egg, and the earth.

Luís Geraldes’s work is based on the four elements essential to life (Earth, Air, Water, and Fire). His work is essentially divided into two horizons, where the sky and the earth are defined, developed in four colors, connected to earth, water, air, and fire. “I work a lot with the cosmic egg as a symbol of birth, life, beginning and end,” he explains. The whole idea revolves around the relationship between science and spirituality, combining elements of day and night, the positive and negative, what is above and what is below. It is an approach that uses figurative elements as symbols of past existences made present—"elements that bind us to a historical past."

Luís Geraldes divides his time between Australia and Portugal, visiting every three months. He believes that in Guarda there are artists with good work and that there are others who “if they had contact with a more cosmopolitan environment would develop more.” Luís Geraldes has not yet created any work for Guarda, but he does not hide that he would like to see one of his pieces in a roundabout in the city. He says he is “disappointed” with Guarda’s so-called “G,” in the Torrão roundabout, because he believes it “is unfinished.” He even calls it a “minor work,” because “it lacks the scale and dynamism of a work of art.”

He also calls attention to the sculpture created by Jerónimo Brigas which, according to Luís Geraldes, “is not placed in the right location.” What it seems most to him is that “it was thrown into a corner.” He therefore suggests that it should be placed in the center of the city’s roundabout.

For Guarda, the artist proposes a complex of elements, combining figurative and abstract features, integrating spirituality and science, capable of dignifying art in the city. Luís Geraldes also has a large collection of photographed works that he would like to share with institutions in Guarda.