DANIEL V. MELIM

Born in 1982, Coimbra. Lives and works in Lisbon.

The images I make come from an interest for old things, for things of the Earth. I am interested in how ancestral processes and presences can nourish our life and challenges today, without nostalgia or idealism.

I believe in the magical function of Art. I believe in a magic based on relationships,
on the collective and on the idiosyncratic truth of each one. I believe in the need to vividly inhabit the innumerable paradoxes of this world. I believe in a magic that is not escapist.

I believe in an Art committed to the present moment. To a certain extent I even believe in a useful Art, one that is at once generous and demanding, at the service of the social fabric in which I am inserted. I do not believe in Art hidden in intellectual jargon, nor do I believe in Art that is easy to “understand”. Nevertheless, I do not believe in an Art that is at the mercy of the constant reaction to what may be called “urgent contemporary issues”. And yet, I repeat, I do not believe in an escapist Art.

[…]

My first creation were paintings. I then expanded them to relational projects where the image is generated in direct interaction with other people, embracing their energy and life story. In a third moment came sound (words and music). I have never abandoned paintings, rather I have tried that the universal human and non-fragmentary vocation of creation always remains, not imprisoning myself in a static self-image of “painter”.

The sound vibration and the words point to the same place from where the images emanate. Painting and sound intend to to embrace this human world, to contribute to its healing in
a present way. I keep searching, inside and outside galleries, for an Art close to the people and to the transformation processes for which our hearts sincerely and nakedly yearn.

Daniel V. Melim