João Serrano

Between Action and Reflection.

At least one of the stereotypes abandoned by the natural sciences is the concept that language is exclusive to humankind, and the character of language's permanent ambiguity.

Bees, ants, and elephants exchange information through signals, whose interpretation is unequivocal. In human contact, it can be said that there is no pure information, although, on the other hand, all phenomena can be interpreted in the conscious mind as information. Our consciousness, self-awareness, reflection, and memory distort the meaning of everything around us, and especially of what others do or have done.

An inherent constant in the chosen perspective on the subject of language is the dilemma between determinism and free will. Does our consciousness produce—against our will and interest—new answers to new questions, or is it our conduct that, ultimately, is susceptible to being interpreted as an endless and varied repetition of a desperate search for the Matrix, the "Paradise Lost"? I fear (I hope?), that the dilemma will present itself to us as the two vanishing points of the single horizon of our perspective.

The resolution of this dilemma presupposes the explosion that results from the fusion between consciousness and reality.

In João Serrano's case, it is about the return journey, returning from language to gesture, from the remainder to action. But language, the word, the letter is resistant. The notion, the meaning, and the drawing do not allow themselves to be laid down without resistance.

What is thrown out the front door comes back in without warning through the back door!

And then this fear! The fear of being partially or totally misunderstood.

If it were necessary to find a title that expressed a common theme in João's work, it could be: "The Sum of Misunderstandings".

But in its repetition, he achieves a clear development. In his latest canvases, it becomes increasingly visible that in his process, in this back-and-forth from the front door to the back door, he feels less and less constrained by the obstacles of this path. At the same time, I hope—for him and for us—that he will not lack these obstacles. He himself doesn't hesitate to invent some, even if it costs him, from time to time, a bit of a dressing down, before surrendering to the Matrix.