Opening: April 2, 6:30 pm

With the title “The Poem of the Sea” (inspired by a verse from “Bateau Ivre” by Artur Rimbaud) it opens on the 2nd of March and will be open on March 2nd. patent until April 2nd at the Gallery of the Portuguese Screen Printing Center at the Centro Cultural de Belém, an exhibition of engravings by Humberto Marçal. The exhibition presents two new print editions by CPS, “Shipwreck” and “Alvorada” and other ten engravings, unique proofs (made from the matrices that originated the two new editions), with chromatic variations and direct intervention of the artist. The designed matrices used etching and aquatint techniques.

Master Humberto Marçal responsible for the area of artistic engraving and lithography at the Portuguese Screen Printing Center, with a broad curriculum at national and international, has developed over several decades one of the most original expressions of contemporary Portuguese engraving. His career includes lithography internships in Paris and Barcelona and attendance at the Royal Academies of Fine Arts in Brussels and Liège. He also dedicated himself to training activities, supervising several courses. He participated in numerous individual and collective exhibitions and his prints were published by prestigious entities, being included in important public and private collections.

Master Humberto Marçal at Atelier CPS, Feb. 2017

All these aspects, accompanied by a great sensitivity, are reflected in the present works, which once again affirm an image of nature capable of involving humans in its sphere. The poetic content of the set is accentuated by titles such as: “Full of Shadows”, “Extension of Light”, “Aurora entre Sombras e Sonhos”, “Poem of a Long Time”, “Dawn on the Horizon” or “Visitation of Splendor”.

From the presentation text of the exhibition written by art critic (A.I.C.A.) and poet Maria João Fernandes, we highlight the following:

          “Humberto Marçal, Master of Portuguese engraving, reached the zenith of existence in an incessant dialogue with the image, of which he is the author. He is a great creator, extracting from paper the sparkles of an alchemy that returns it to the gold of a perenniality that belongs to the gaze. (…)

          The artist, craftsman and poet walked over the rubble and delights of time to record on his pages the fugitive daydreams of the imagination in tune with the great adventure of the Cosmos. What today offers us is; It is the inestimable gift of an imagination awakened by the senses, a premonitory balance of crossing a sea of wonders, an enchanted and audacious journey. His gift transforms the paper support into an ocean that goes beyond its limits. An ocean that has the colors and light of a rainbow palette that acquires an energy and a spell from the sphere of the marvelous. This ocean is an ocean of shadows and light, vast and changing like the existence of which it is splendid metaphor. Above it stands the blackness of a ship that appears to be uninhabited, a kind of Noah's ark. before the Apocalypse that harbors life within it, but a life that is First of all, that of the soul, that of a spirit that dares to resist the threat of all the hecatombs of civilization. (…)

        Humberto Marçal, in this superb series of intervened engravings, offers us a legacy that unites Life and Art in an inseparable and magical link. The treasure of images is It is the same as life, the one that only reveals itself to the exceptional artist and to which only he can give a plastic and poetic form at the same time. Your invitation is welcome. trip is the same as already seduced Rimbaud, the invitation to the marvelous sparseness in the light and shadows of an ocean that cradles in its iridescent waters a ship on which we are all called to embark.”

Portuguese Screen Printing Center at CCB

Centro Cultural de Belém, store 7
Praça do Império 1449-003 Lisboa
Tel. 213 162 175   /  Times: every day from 10am to 9pm.