Adraga with orange reflection, 2024

Oil painting on paper (50 x 70 cm), from a series of 4 paintings illustrating Adraga beach in Portugal.

More than a decade ago I left Brazil, and since then, in my travels around the world, the landscape has always been my first shelter. When I arrived in Portugal, it was the Atlantic - with its immense, living and indomitable presence - that welcomed me. It was the Atlantic that made me stay, put down roots and create a home. The landscape that surrounds me has become a constant presence in my artistic practice. I observe the subtle variations in light, the movements of the tides, the almost imperceptible changes that time imprints on shapes. All this feeds my gaze. In this series of four paintings on Adraga Beach, I'm trying to capture what, by nature, escapes me: the moment that changes, the color that dissolves, the shadow that shifts. It's an attempt - perhaps vain, but profoundly necessary - to contain time, to make permanent landscapes that, in their essence, are ephemeral.

- Gabriela Albuquerque