APAGADA

The fault of not having a job is always ours.

– “You shouldn’t have taken that course. What were you waiting for? ”

Everyone has the right to work. Work defines us, gives us meaning. And the lack of it obscures us, we lose the strengh and mainly our identity.

Resist. React. Stay.

Years of precarious work, random and even bizarre services follow. Uncertain hours, days and years. We are going to measure the variables. Are we staying or leaving?

Apagada is a sculpture inspired by a routine gesture from the Alentejo. In this area it is common to whitewash the house every year. Lime protects clay pieces from the weather, be it the brick on the wall or the sculpture in the garden. The lime wear off usually happens in the same areas, but when it comes to whitewashing, the painting is always complete. So in the smallest pieces, the details are lost until they are even imperceptible. Whitewashing is caring and protecting, but in some cases it is also losing definition.

And so is this sculpture, the portrait of an absence. An absence due to the addition of the sum and not the subtraction. This is another type of annulment of the person that is marked by the addition of layers, of accumulated moments that transform us.

The proposal is to portray a smiling woman (clay modeling) and then add layers of lime until she is unrecognizable.

In the end there is only a little yellow smile. Despite everything we resist.

Bio |

Liliana Velho (Lisbon, 1985) is a visual artist, who has two hearts, one in Viseu and the other in Montemor-o-Novo. She graduated in Sculpture at the Universidade de Belas Artes in Lisbon (2009) and holds a Master’s degree in Visual Arts from ARCA, Coimbra (2012) and currently attends a PhD in Plastic Arts at the Faculdade de Belas Artes da Universidade do Porto (FBAUP). In recent years, Liliana has dedicated herself to ceramic sculpture, choosing clay as the most important material in her practice. She also works with different media, such as drawing, sculpture and installation. Since 2015, she exhibits regularly, in individual and collective exhibitions, collaborating with other artists. Currently lives and works in Viseu.