The Exhibition Waves and Whirpools was opened in the Municipal Gallery of Porto on the 12th of September and will last until the 15th of November. Curator Martha Kirszenbaum presents the works of Luís Lázaro Matos. The exposition includes seven diptych paintings and four tondos.

As visitors can learn from the exhibition description, all the pictures were inspired by seven songs released by the artist: The Waves of Lisbon, Sea Turtle, Laika Surfing Cosmic Waves, Red Sea, Whirlpools, Bermuda Triangle, and Tsunami. The paintings have the same names as the titles of the songs.



The aesthetic of all the exhibited pictures is similar. In all of them, the artist uses bright colours, big brush strokes, and black contour. All pictures refer to the sea and life in the ocean, and viewers can see in them elaborated references to ocean/sea mythology.

On each picture, the viewer can notice a persona that can be interpreted as the artist himself. All the creatures that appear in the paintings seem to create music: singing, playing keyboards, striking the guitar. On some of them, the musician is presented as a human, on the others as water animals, such as a turtle or a stingray.

The representation that ties the series together is a rope that passes through different elements of images, visually tangling them together. It's not a sailing rope as one could expect from the marine topic of the paintings, but rather an electric cable. The cord can be interpreted as an inseparable connection of these paintings with music, and a musician’s life. The audio jack not only connects all pictures (and instruments presented on them) but is also a visual reminder about the musical inspiration for this series.


On one of the diptychs, aliens appear. They sit on a palm tree singing or saying something into the microphone. That representation may not seem to suit the others. However, it's connected with the author's fascination with conspiracy theories. The artist doesn't hide his interest in the secrets of the Bermuda Triangle. The curator, in a very interesting way, composed the exhibition in the mezzanine of the gallery, which has a triangle shape, creating a space where visitors can be caught by the waves of the art.



The series can be interpreted as an allegorical self-portrait of the painter. However, the life dictated by the ocean, inseparable from the sea can be familiar to many Portuguese people. In this country, for ages life and culture were connected with life on the sea. For sailors, fishermen, and nowadays even surfers, the water can be a determinant of the rhythm of life.

Another important part of the exhibition are four tondos that are situated on the gallery walls. They are much smaller than the big paintings, so it's easy to miss them. All of them present the moon and at first sight they seem to be identical, but they have a few differences. The tondos represent the four different phases of the moon: first quarter, full moon, last quarter, and the new moon. When it comes to the ocean, moon phases are very important. They're responsible for creating tides. 

The Art Museum of Cluj-Napoca, together with the University of Art and Design, institutional collaborator in organizing this event, presented in the Bánffy Palace between September-October, the collective exhibition under the suggestive generic "Gone With the Wind". The exhibition brings to the public's attention an illustrative selection of dissertation projects taken at the graduation exam at the end of the academic year 2019-2020 by master students of the University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca, specialization "Painting", made under the guidance of the coordinating teachers Ioan Sbârciu and Olimpia-Georgeta Bera. The exhibition includes works by Oana-Cătălina Asavei, Tiziana Bianca Cellino, Mădălin Ciucă, Tudor Costin, Farkas Andreea, Patricia-Denisa Isip, Maria-Theodora Ispas, Kalabér Timea, Andrei Nuţu, Cosmin-Marin Sandu, Paula-Maria Sgândăr, Szekely Sevan, Simona-Daniela Tudose and Diana-Amelia Varga. 

Remembering summer festivals, when people made a mass of close contact, colliding in a musical ritual caused by heavy metal sounds. This series of photos was taken at the Austrian festival Nova Rock 2015. Chaotic exchange of energies, unpredictable body movements and a friendly audience which, although it may not look like that, is very open to everyone, even to the girl with the camera.

"Šutke" (shootke) is a type of "game" people who go to concerts and stand in the front rows play. It is something like wrestling, running, and slamming into each other following the beat and melody of the music. It can give you bruises, yes, it is a rough game, but it is fun!

This series of photographs also celebrate those who already practice this dance ritual what they certainly miss during the pandemic. The result is documentary photographs without the time and conditions for a perfect shot, which creates a conflict in the author to achieve this.

The theme of the audience at the concert, recording energy, emotions and movement is a project of the author that is already ongoing and can get another face of its own in a future exhibition.

Recently I viewed BIOS, an interactive and intriguing art exhibition centered on the concept of the Anthropocene phenomenon. Presented in an art space in Brașov, the Multicultural Center of the Transilvania University, the exhibition gathers art installations created by ten young romanian artists, curated by RIZI and scrutinizes invisible or ignored human processes that lead to debates about Anthropocene and the new geological era. Through artistic installations, the artists distill major concepts of the anthropocene phenomenon and inquire it’s particular aesthetics.

BIOS exhibition. Photos by Cosmina Marcela OLTEAN

“Substantial evidence on human impact hints on the fact that humans are now a force as powerful as nature itself. Ice ages and major extinction events are in the nature of nature. Considering the Earth’s entire existence as a timescale, humans are in it at 0,0057% of the whole existence of life on the blue planet. In this short time, humanity has accumulated power over nature thanks to technological and scientific advances. Through direct and indirect butterfly-effect actions, humanity has exploited this power to it’s benefit, leading to significant interspecies inequalities. The power of awareness, technology and immediate action can be steered in exciting but also dangerous directions”, points out the curator. “Can we use our technological power to harmonize with the analogue nature?”, “what could be the journey of the individual to the collective projection of the future?”, “what about a symbiotic interspecies relationship?” – these are the main questions raised by the artistic project presented the participating artists.