A MATTER OF TIME

I’m sitting on a train. originally, I wanted to write about Nuno’s works outside – in a forest, a park or on my balcony. I wanted to be on the same mercy of those elements, Nuno incorporates in his art – earth, wind, (fire), air, and their eventualities. I’m watching nature from inside a moving vessel, though. protected. Only able to contemplate what is passing by – spontaneous images of dense forests, vast fields and aligned strips of houses. Scenes framed by a backdrop of rain-soaked clouds and dramatic lighting. What I watch is directed by the rules of chance and the moods of nature – there’s a first connection to Nuno’s art. I look directly into the sun – it’s the sole ‘creator’. Gives visibility to form and idea; fuels the life cycles; creates emotions; shapes material. I’m getting more connected. The fields are covered in a lush green – nature gets lured into producing afresh. Life perpetuates in cycles, their nodal points become the source for new acts of creation. On one of their intersections, Nuno and I met – I’m writing about his art. It functions inside nature’s life cycles. Earthly products are his material; natural forces his inspiration; the juxtaposition of eternity and evanescence is his concept. “What’s a second in comparison to a million years”. His works are in constant flux, they are not confined to a space, defined by time, change, and recurrence. He incorporates evidences of the past. Like a forensic he gathers nature’s ancient inscription in stone – fossils of plants. He studies geological facts and goes into the woods to collect them. He doesn’t exhibit the remnants though. Nobody else will ever see them. They function materially and conceptually, not as objects themselves. In one interaction, he skips them on the surface of the water. It takes one, two, three, maybe four instances and then they are gone. Those precious moments solely captured on photographic paper – relying on the coincidental parallelism of stone and shutter. What took ages to grow, vanishes from sight in a couple of volatile moments. He rips the fossils out of one cycle, only to throw them into another. They will become future evidence. “In a million of years they might be found again.” Idea becomes form, becomes idea, becomes form... in another piece he mashes the fossils and applies the clay on pieces of paper. Ancient storages of memory become one minimalistic ‘painting’. it becomes a massive reunification of biological information – a metamorphosis of codes. idea becomes form, becomes idea, becomes form... his works are also subject to the randomness of earthly forces. In one piece, he hung the fossilized leaves on a tree until the wind threw them down. Only documented by the before and the after. “Poetry of the fall”. The fall as a lonesome performance. We can only ima-gine how it looked like, how it sounded. There, on the ground, they get another chance. The snake bites itself in the tail. Idea becomes form, becomes idea, becomes form... the train stops. The image freezes. The sun exits with a spectacular showdown. We continue. Momentarily the journey is running on a straight track, uncertain of its final designation, aware of its eternal recurrence though.
The sun also will return.

Julia Hartmann, May 2014.