#Serie_18

The series “VOWAGE” (or viaticum phase – travelling) emerges as a transitional mark in his career as an artist, where concepts of travel and commitment meet. The artwork evokes a promise made in childhood and only now, in artistic maturity, is it fulfilled. This phase/series incorporates a word game between “VOYAGE” (trip) and “VOW AGE” (age of oath/vow, commitment, promise), creating a visual and symbolic narrative that unfolds throughout each piece in this series.

At this stage, the artist articulates the idea of an archive that is coming to an end, a journey that ends – a collection of experiences and learning accumulated over the years that are now “packaged” for sending, as a material and emotional farewell to past stages. This goodbye is visually manifested through recurring elements, such as threads, stamps, seals, keys… in the context of explored and archived, a closure associated with orders, packages ready to dispatch and leaving.

“VOWAGE” is not only a conclusion, but also a starting point for a new artistic and personal phase, where the artist abandons the conventions of the past, the annihilation of classical learning, the influences of art history and, in particular, offer homage and farewell to “Alterego Vitae”, the artistic name that accompanied him until the end of this series. The pictorial, sculptural and installation areas merge in a search for authenticity, stripped of the classical influences and the canons of art history that previously guided him. Freed from his archive, now, there is a new promise, a new journey of deconstructive exploration of himself and techniques, assuming a free and open path. a focal practice of meeting the most intimate part of one's own identity, finding one's true self – Silva Nuno.
Silva Nuno.2010