Impressions by Dra. Marina Fonseca, curator of Juan Ricardo Nordlinger’s “Um Olhar, um Pincel, uma Mancha, Um Quadro” on the opening day

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Palavras proferidas pela Dra. Marina Fonseca, curadora da exposição “Um Olhar, um Pincel, uma Mancha, Um Quadro” no dia da inauguração.

Juan Nordlinger’s solo exhibition opens a space for dialog between art, history, and memories. Painting, ceramics, and lithography coexist and intertwine in this exhibition, creating a subtle play of correspondence. Juan Nordlinger’s work is built up in layers—of color, gesture, and material—as if each surface holds the passage of time. His works evoke fragments of memory, where presence and absence alternate in a play of light and shadow.
The painting speaks to us through the assertive colors and strokes. Its gesturality seems spontaneous but hides a rigorous sense of composition. The overlapping tones create atmospheres of suspension, where each element suggests more than it shows as if there were always something about to reveal itself.
The overlapping tones create atmospheres of suspension, where each element suggests more than it shows as if there were always something about to reveal itself.
Ceramics is a material that molds itself and holds the imprint of hands. There is a sense of permanence and, at the same time, fragility—as if each piece were a record of something that could escape at any moment. The rough texture, the subtle cracks, and the organic shapes remind us that art is also a process, born of transformation and the unexpected.
Lithography, a meticulous and demanding technique, adds another layer to this journey. Here, the line takes on a new weight, a new sense of repetition and variation. The emerging patterns seem like echoes of past gestures as if the print carried a succession of visual memories.
Throughout this exhibition, we realise how Juan’s work forces us to stop. To wait. In a world where everything seems to speed up, where our gaze quickly glides over images and shapes, here we are invited to another time—a time of contemplation, of listening. There is a silence in his paintings, a pause in his strokes, a necessary suspension in his compositions.
Juan likes to touch souls, and that’s what we feel as we walk through this space. There’s a lot of strength, which makes us stop and look more closely.
May this moment be more than a contemplation of art. May it be an invitation to introspect, remember, and encounter what is most human about art.
Thank you!