Marques Alves Studio- Work of art

an abstract photo of a curved building with a blue sky in the background

View with a shift

There is a particular moment in the day when the world seems suspended between what has been and what is yet to happen. A brief interval, before forms settle into certainty, when light slowly begins to transform the landscape and perception remains open to possibility.

View with a Shift emerges from this territory of transition. It is not simply about looking at a landscape, but about experiencing a shift in perception—a subtle adjustment of attention that allows us to see what usually remains unnoticed. The title refers precisely to this displacement: a small physical or mental shift capable of transforming the relationship between observer, time, and place.

The works brought together in View with a Shift originate from a similar mode of attention. They arise from a process of sustained observation, repeated journeys, and encounters with landscapes shaped by the passage of time. Rather than seeking to fix a stable image of the world, they follow its states of transformation. What is presented is not a finished landscape, but a set of situations in which light, matter, memory, and movement remain in constant interaction.

The void between the expected and the real thing

"Looking at every unique moment as a reality under construction, discovering the simple way to navigate through the constantly unfolding complexities, without losing sight of the fact that every gesture is a response to something that happened before."

The idea of a “shift” runs throughout the exhibition. It is the movement from night into day, from the visible to the sensed, from distance to proximity. It is also the passage between different states of awareness: walking, observing, waiting, returning. Each work can be understood as the trace of an experience that began before its material realization, rooted in a direct relationship with the territory and with the slow rhythms of observation.

Landscape is the point of departure for the works in this exhibition, yet it is rarely invoked as a singular model or the sole destination of creative energy. What emerges in the paintings is neither the representation of a specific place nor an attempt to preserve an observed image. Instead, the images result from a process of accumulation and transformation, in which different experiences, times, and places intersect to generate a new visual field.

The lived experience of landscape occupies a central place in the artist’s practice. Walking, observing, and dwelling within a territory are ways of establishing a relationship with the world that later returns through painting. Yet what is observed is never transferred directly onto the canvas. Experience first passes through memory, perception, thought, and consciousness, becoming material for a process of construction in which gesture plays a fundamental role.

Drawing outdoors forms an essential part of this process. As the sun moves across the sky, light continuously transforms the forms, colours, and spatial relationships of the landscape. Nothing remains fixed. Shadows alter contours, volumes shift in intensity, and motifs seem to acquire successive identities throughout the day. Faced with this instability, drawings are executed rapidly and continuously, often without returning the gaze to the subject. The aim is not accuracy of depiction, but the exercise of memory—the attempt to retain a fleeting impression before it disappears.

Later, these observations merge with other experiences, other places, and other moments. Memory does not organize information according to standards of visual fidelity; rather, it constructs relationships of affinity, intensity, and meaning. The images that emerge in painting belong to this intermediate territory, where different times and places coexist and transform one another.

In this sense, painting does not seek to reproduce the landscape, but to understand the way it is absorbed through experience. What emerges on the surface of the canvas is less the description of a place than the synthesis of multiple encounters with a territory—a synthesis through which memory reorganizes lived experience and consciousness grants continuity to dispersed fragments.

Expansion of the world

This set of 6 paintings depicts earthy landscapes in which color highlights the time of day when rising heat waves distort the perception of the landscape, creating images that are like mirages.

Blown by the wind

Mixed media on canvas

285 x 120 cm

Spontaneously in a sensory experience

Mixed media on canvas

120 x 95 cm

Expansion of the world

Mixed media on paper

95 x 120 cm

Solitude canyon #6

Mixed media on canvas

95 x 120 cm

View with a shift #13

Mixed media on paper

50 x 35 cm

Rivers & mountains

Mixed media on paper

35 x 50 cm

View with a shift # 3

Mixed media on paper

70 x 50 cm

The dusk & the moonlit

Drawings on paper based on sketches made at the end of the day and the beginning of night, where the declining quality of light creates a landscape where chiaroscuro and the contrast of forms become evident.