APHANISMOS
Artur Leão
Words by Eduarda Neves.
By opening a space of fiction between signs and objects, Aphanismos contaminates the connection between meaning and reference. Geological matter transforms into body and pain; times, cultures, and traditions merge; the heavens connect to the earth.
While photography depends on the referent and remains tributary to reality, it does not suspend reference but distances itself from the perceptible referent—dolmens and menhirs embody the magic and ritual expressed by stone’s tactile and chromatic properties. A complex and multifaceted hermeneutics evokes the sacralization and mysticism of the cosmos. Accessing a symbolic time and place, precisely the Neolithic period of the Iberian Peninsula, the photographic image reminds us of the affective order of the past.
Artur Leão
Artur Leão, born in 1997, is a visual artist, designer and vocalist (Benthik Zone) based in Porto. He started working as a designer for scopio Editions, where he developed a special care for the art of visual storytelling and bookmaking. Since then, he has focused on developing photographic projects that reveal his inner process of imaginative transmutation while searching for archeological sites, virgin and untouched-looking landscapes and people connected to the rural world in his forefather’s land. In his work, connections between poetry, mythology, and religion arise through a gaze that mirrors the language of “nature” in its incomprehensible complexity and
reconditeness. He always captures scenarios where he sees potential for channelling a mystical dimension onto the surface of the image.
