Céu da boca is a term used in Portugese for "palate". It is a slightly poetic expression, unlike the Spanish (ceiling of the mouth) or English (roof of the mouth) ones; and it opens the body's interior towards the cosmos, allowing it to reach out and taste the world. In a way, the same thing happens in the artistic practice of Dalila Gonçalves (Portugal, 1982), developed in a sincere dialogue with the matter, a meeting between the body's heart and the substance. In the gallery space, we encounter various works that explore those relations, always emphasising the transitory dislocation between the inside and the ouside of the body, between one's own experience and the environment around us.
O tempo dos outros às vezes é o meu(2019) is an enormous collection of queue tickets from a traditional metal store located in Porto. Grouped together in the form of a cylinder on the...gallery floor, the tickets mark the passage through the exhibition. In a certain way, this new morphology distances the material from its original function and brings it closer to some kind of a mysterious, vague animal, but in a way it keeps guarding within itself the recent transitions of our cities.
The signs and marks of passage of time are also latent in Anteparo (2019), a work made of two photographs of a statue in Pompeii and a sulphated lemon, which reveal the condition of a natural element and another forming part of our heritage. The extraordinary facing the mundane, the soft facing the hard, the ephemeral facing the durable, all of them live under the effect of their past existence. Along the same lines, Dissecar (Dissecting) (2019) is an installation made of small wooden battens placed on the wall, which knots have been removed and now rest upon them. Those knots are witnesses of the passing years, a subtle action dissects the natural temporality. Another work hanging on the wall is Pós Juízo (Post-Wisdom) (2019), presenting a milk tooth and a wisdom tooth of the artist, finished with gold, which somehow marks a time frame presenting the relation between the biographical and the universal, the humane with its surroundings, and the conformation of the body to its existence.
The practice of Dalila Gonçalves moves in an imprecise and unexpected space marked by the experience, the practice, the attempts, the recollection and careful observation of materials that surround us and the laws reigning them. Through her photographs, installations or sculptures, the artist analyses questions related to the passage of time, changes in the matter, relations with the natural, and creation processes from industrial to organic, or from serial to handcrafted.
Juan Canela
Entrada actualizada el el 04 feb de 2020
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