17 Feb — 15 Mar 2024

Com o olhar; caminhando, by Diana Cerezino

Curated by Frederico Vicente

In the gerund, time is slow, allowing it to linger, lingering, although the action is in the moment and is in progress. Diana Cerezino’s paintings invite us to the same present participle in the verb ‘look’.

At first, the canvases are a decoy to the eye, they are static and painted with the same hue. And if viewed from a distance, the painting appears as homegenous, but as one approaches and takes slow steps around it, the eyes begin to reveal the details. Short strides are necessary – slowly and walking – in a sort of pendulum movement around the painting. Upon approaching, the squares appear distinct: some are glossy, some matte, some flat, and some deep. However, from afar, they appear as a single block with varying light accents.

I dare say that one cannot look before seeing; to which Cerezino’s pieces add ‘looking only after walking’, in a performative gesture of connection between the eye-lens (scientific) and the eye-observer (contemplative). And we are aware of the vast difference in actions. We can perceive without ever ‘looking’, and ‘to look’ we must slow down and compel ourselves to stop. As we enter the gallery, we notice a curtain that conceals something yet to be revealed. But instead of focusing on the curtain, we observe the fabric unfolding on the floor. Similarly, there is a vase of white tulips on the table, but we see through the transparency of the glass and contemplate beyond it. We see the green mosaics paving the gallery, but we look at the thickness of the walls. We see rigidity in the monotone of Cerezino’s paintings, but we look at the texture of the brushstrokes and the travel of light through the tones – germinating or erasing the color, with more or less shadow.

The geometry of the square has a significant presence in Cerezino’s process, it is even a language - and the process is fundamental in the artist’s creative thinking, and also as meditative therapy. For the viewer, the gaze moves from square to square, looking at the almost imperceptible limits in the subtle change of color. A cell is grouped into larger sets of 40x40, 60x60, 80x80, 120x120, 140x140, or infinity, maintaining the rigor of the square, or stretching to more panoramic shapes of 70x90 or 90x40. The grid, which would initially be seen as a limiting structure, allows it to accommodate a playful field where the transformations of tonality are explored. Each square has a pigment, a saturation, a brightness. With each vibration, a new square appears. For Diana Cerezino, the final impact on the viewer, who ‘looks for beetles and other insects among bushes’ (Beetles in the Bush, 2020), is as important as the middle (process), a personal and introspective exercise.

In this new series of work centered on the tones of rammed earth (especially the pieces Cultivo and Germinar, 2024), Diana Cerezino half-closes her eyes over wheat fields after the harvest; walking through the dryness of the earth “flat, smooth as the palms of your hands, without orographic features worthy of that name”. (1 SARAMAGO, José, As Pequenas Memórias, p.12|)

Diana Cerezino (Lisbon, 1988) lives and works in Barreiro.
Through her abstract painting, Diana Cerezino explores themes of visual memory and the perception and relativity of colour. Colour conveys a deep sense of subjectivity for the artist and her combinations create an automatic response in the viewer to pursue an image via the continuity and predictability of the composition. Having lived in London since 2006, she studied Fine Art at Middlesex University and  Painting at Camberwell College of Arts. Currently, she co-directs.