Landscape on a watercourse
The Landscape, in this particular case, the Laurel Forest, reveals us through Cristina Perneta’s interpretations, a world where the real and the unreal mix and dissolve.
Through painting and installation we are presented with varieties of this forest which exists so close to us but only a sharp-sighted look, as the one of this artist, will make us see beyond the green; that’s exactly what is shown in “Landscape on a watercourse”. As an example, both Ribeira de São Jorge and a brook in Rabaçal show us that besides a simple watercourse it encloses beauty and secrets which will be revealed only by an attentive and insistent knowledge.
The trees, the shades of green, the organic life inherent to this whole vegetal world, the basic and minimalist shapes and even the risk itself associated with the exploration of a forest, are the narrative for Cristina Perneta.
Through a well-defined line and a transparent plastic language we may read a message that mixes with the chromatic selection, which is no more than a real reinterpretation of the studied area, intercalated by pigments that emphasise aspects related to a world that may exist beyond the watercourse.
This Forest, named Laurisilva (Laurel Forest) means energy, change and life; in this context everything is changeable and it is in permanent transformation. Cristina Perneta changes this cycle of life that will never end.
Through her paintings, she preserves the memory of several moments, making them unforgettable, printing a pause, a break in time, registering it…
Marisa Santos
Funchal, November 2006