"Dark Matter"
The Portuguese architect and photographer Francisco Ricarte presents, on the 17th of March, Thursday, at 6:30pm, at the Art Garden of the Art For All Society (AFA), his latest project entitled “DarK Matter”. This is a series composed of 12 color and black and white photographs, in vertical and horizontal formats, measuring 90cm x 60cm.
Francisco Ricarte captured the images in early 2021 in Coloane, close to the sea and nature. Revealing to a certain extent, the photos, through a specific visual code, "seek to 'hide' more then they show 'see'".
Curated by local artist Alice Kok, the exhibition is the first part of the AFA’s annual project entitled “As Within, So Without – The Art of Imagery Exhibition Series”. “The global pandemic situation plunged the artist into a deep reflection on his own environment and, perhaps more importantly, on the possibilities of the unknowable. The whole series of photographs was taken in broad daylight in Coloane along the seafront of Macau with a deliberate decrease in the exposure level, thus creating a mysterious atmosphere of darkness under the sun”, writes the curator in her manifesto.
Alice Kok, also confesses an admirer of the work “The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint Exupéry, highlights her famous phrase “the essential is invisible to the eyes”. “'Dark Matter' refers to a component of the universe whose presence is discerned by its gravitational pull rather than its luminosity. Dark matter makes up 30.1% of the matter-energy composition of the universe; the rest is dark energy (69.4%) and “ordinary” visible matter (0.5%)”, added the artist.
Before becoming a professional architect, Francisco Ricarte had been dedicated to photography since he was 21, in the 1970s, when he was offered his first reflex camera. Since then, he has been using the medium of communication as an expression of his own view of the environment around him. In 2006, he moved to Macau and worked as an architectural project manager until today. In recent years, Ricarte has participated in several group exhibitions where he presented his photographic works based mainly on landscape and architecture. The 66-year-old and year of retirement, the author, who is a founding member and vice president of the local photography association Halftone – reveals his latest work.
The exhibition is open until April 11 and can be viewed from Monday and Saturday, from 11 am to 7 pm.
TExt: G.L.P.