Chama was a group show with works of Julio Pomar, Sara Bichão and Rita Ferreira at the
Atelier-Museu Júlio Pomar, curated by Sara Antónia Matos, 2018

“Sara Bichão not only constructed almost all of the pieces in the exhibition but also created a work that crosses the space from one end to another. Glade, from 2018, evokes the form of an enormous catapult, whose sling (in unbleached cloth) is held by the building’s guardrails on the upper floor, and stretched from there to the ground floor, where it is secured by two 300 kilogram basalt rocks. Installed from east to west, the piece also consists of a disc of concave steel, placed above the windows on the upper floor of the building, that captures and scatters the sunlight around it.
Mention must be made too of the work that the artist dedicated to Júlio Pomar: For JP, from 2018, a braided rope of unbleached material, knotted around objects from the beach: canes, burnt sticks, stones, and plastic objects. There is also a drawing (a small bird) which the most astute visitors will relate to Pomar’s drawings of seagulls (on tracing paper), displayed high up on the western wall of the museum.
Two things can be deduced from the insertion of elements and materials gathered on the beach in Sara Bichão’s work: first that in the construction of her works the artist took into consideration the dialogue she would establish with Júlio Pomar’s assemblages, and second that her work – like that of Júlio Pomar – needs time to be observed, discovered and experienced.
On this note, it seems to me that the works of these two artists are formed of and require different times and require of observation. Sara Bichão’s work appears to be made and to occur between layers, calling upon one to move closer and then further away, to dive in and out, like Júlio Pomar’s paintings, through which every stratum of meaning is revealed.”
Excerpt of the text by Sara Antónia Matos, 2018, for the catalog of the exhibition Chama.

© António Jorge Silva

Full text by Sara Antónia Matos, 2018, below: