Abstraction has a historic connection to coldness, whether in the ab-ex association to depression or the academic approach to formalism which followed it. This style of abstraction foregrounds gesture. To paint without subject is to remove the burden of representation and, to instead enter the woods of pure form or pure expression - the artist sacrifices symbols and signifiers in favor of tones and textures. The communication of the work obscured, sat somewhere within the cascading brush strokes and fields of color. Historically asserted as a male-dominated practice, female painters and questions of femininity within the medium were eschewed in favor of the phallic bravado of the massive canvas - the endless battle between artist and surface.
Teresa Murta rejects this coldness, her works are full of undulating color drifting in and out of discernible shapes. The possibility of representation floats off as readily as it emerges, guiding the viewers across the surface by the hand. Heavy texture gives way to flat fields of pigment, balancing one another with the wilful intention of nature - viewers given the opportunity to gaze into turmoil whilst retaining the serenity of equilibrium.
To Meet on the Riverbend, Murta’s latest body of work, is a sneak peek into a family. The works are made together, with no canvas abandoned in the process of making. Refusing the torrid romance of the torn-up drawing, the kicked-through canvas, Murta nurtures the works as a unit. A closeness between the artist and the surfaces is developed through this working process, questions raised in one painting can be answered in another - balance is achieved through each work’s relationship to its sibling. In any familial unit, there are members who require more support and those who require less - this personification is inherent in Murta’s practice, working on canvases in unison almost as a means of sharing collective positive will.
Sharing, as a notion, equally applies to the space in which the works are conceived. With everything happening in unison, the studio becomes an incubator for works in varying sizes, densities and personalities. As formal qualities emerge in one work, the aura of the space shifts and balance is as likely to be found in a new painting as much as it is the one being worked on. The familial relationship of the works creates a unique formal disposition, one in which questions of composition, color and texture are discussed across multiple works - all in conversation with one another.
Stand-up - one of the largest works in the exhibition - undulates with waves of colour crashing into a central maelstrom, highlighting Murta’s understanding of painting’s formal concerns. The piece alludes towards a depth of field, without fully clarifying a foreground or background, slipping together around the edges and creating a surface locked in suspense. Contrasting this, To be held adopts clear separations between foreground and background, opting towards establishing a strong phenomenological connection around the texture and physicality of abstract forms.
In To Meet on the Riverbend, Teresa Murta challenges the historic legacy of abstract painting, applying new and idiomatic ways of considering a painting not just as an individual object but as a member of a broader body of work, existing with its own contextual purpose.
– Allan Gardner
Teresa Murta (b. 1993, Portugal) lives and works in Berlin, Germany. Her work delves into the realms of the fantastic, the absurd and the poetic metamorphosis of the real. Intuitively, Murta weaves together elements from both the artificial and natural worlds, offering a gateway into alternate and uncanny realities that beckon to be explored. Exhibitions include To Meet on the Riverbend, Nicodim Annex, Los Angeles (2025, solo, forthcoming); The Ballad of the Children of the Czar, Galeria Nicodim, Bucharest (2024); One Second Plan, Bruno Múrias Gallery, Lisboa (2024, solo); Purple Haze, But Better Together, Tabula Rasa Gallery, London (2023, solo); Aftermath, Mazzoli Gallery, Berlin (2023); Fishnet, Instituto Camões, Berlin (2022, solo); (0/1) O Zero e o Um, Natural History and Science Museum, Lisbon (2022); Que te seja leve o peso das estrelas, Centro de Arte Contemporânea de Coimbra, Coimbra (2022); Airbag, Galeria Aldama Fabre, Bilbao (2021, solo); Whistle, Whistle, Galeria Nave, Lisbon (2021, solo), among others.