Lourenco reflects on Doorways to the past ahead of exhibition

Spira Tlhankane | Friday May 7, 2021 15:21

The artworks will be featured in the upcoming collaborative exhibition with talented ceramist, Emmanuel Senamolela on May 8, 2021 at Thapong Visual Arts Centre.

“Each painting looks into a certain memory or holds a feeling of a specific person that has been important in my journey for the last couple of years. In this body of work, “Doorways to the Past”, I look at the fragility of memories and the importance of cherishing them,” she told Arts & Culture in an interview.

Lourenco added that the paintings consist of both small and large, oil on canvas paintings. She said the paintings contain landscapes of precious places in Botswana and South Africa. “I have painted the images in door or window sizes, to give the impression that you could walk or look through into another world and that each piece is door way to a memory. This is to give the viewer a feeling that they may step through this ‘door’ into a happier memory,” she highlighted. She also revealed that each painting holds an important emotion or memory for her and hopefully this emotion can be portrayed to the viewer though dramatic colours, lush impasto brush strokes and dynamic compositions.

Lourenco was quick to admit that during the last year, their lives have been taken over by the pandemic. “I was unable to come home to Botswana as often and it left me feeling a sense of longing for home. This time, I believe, made humanity more aware of how important relationships are, as well as our sense of freedom to visit beautiful places,” she said. Lourenco said with the upcoming work with Senamolela she wants to invite the viewer to see various special places through her eyes, which are tinted by the fantasy of freedom. “Some works do speak of sorrow; this is something that the world can universally feel during this time of loss. The paintings are smaller than my previous works, as I have traveled a lot in the last few years and had to find canvases that would fit in the spaces I inhabited. These hold the feeling of fantasy of these sublime places and enable the viewer to get a sense of a doorway we might be able to walk through into,” she further explained. Lourenco also indicated that there are a few smaller canvases where she did close up works. She said these little paintings give the feeling of portholes people can see through to imagine something more hopeful during this time.