Roots and Horizons – Field Notes
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| La licorne by Isabel Meyreles © Raquel Pinheiro |
Today I took the metro to Matosinhos for the opening of Isabel Meyrelles’ exhibition Raízes e Horizontes (Roots and Horizons). Meyrelles, born in Matosinhos in 1929, is a sculptor, poet, translator — one of the Portuguese surrealists who made her life in Paris. The title itself stayed with me: roots and horizons.
The Galeria Municipal offered a porto de honra that turned out to be champagne de honra. There were pastries, bowls of mango, grapes, pineapple. Water and orange juice. Each guest was given a hardcover catalogue: weighty, elegant, a root in itself, preserving the work and life of Meyrelles across time.
Next door, at the Biblioteca Municipal de Matosinhos, another exhibition opened: Pedro Bruscky Espregueira Themudo, Lighting Project, Light Imagined. Between the two spaces, I caught the faint salt of the sea in the air.
And then the small found things began to gather:
- street-found wood boards, washed later at home, their greys and rust tones already carrying their own palette.
- blocks marked EPAL (Lisbon’s water company, somehow on a pavement in Porto) stacked beside the boards.
- a terracotta pot with a dried manjerico, waiting to house another plant.
- a mason jar, part of a bagful left by the recycling bins, all clean and label-free, ready for paint water or flowers. One small jar, with its lid removed, already looks like a vase.
- a pine cone, later placed with others on the veranda.
- half a coconut shell, smooth and hollow, once ocean-crossing.
Catalogue, jars, pine cone, coconut shell, boards and bricks, terracotta pot — all carried this double movement: root and horizon. Seed and sea. Archive and experiment.
Value isn’t always about whether we can “afford” something. It’s about recognizing what holds meaning. Some fly across continents to follow a band, some buy albums in duplicate, some save a mason jar because they can see the flowers it might hold.
Today’s exhibitions, and their quiet found marvels in the walk home, reminded me: art lives in these choices, these recognitions. What we keep. What we carry. What we call horizon.
For more about Isabel Meyrelles (long format in Portuguese)
Short format in English.
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