Curatorial notes
Here is the story about the given artwork: Fernando Lanhas created this painting in the twentieth century with simple shapes and forms. The most prominent element is the arc, a fragment of a circle pregnant with meaning. The circle is an ancient symbol found across cultures, representing wholeness, eternity, and cyclical time. Think of the Ouroboros, the snake eating its tail, a symbol of endless return, or the halos encircling the heads of saints, emblems of divine perfection. Incomplete, this arc echoes a sense of yearning, a quest for completion. It reminds me of the lunar crescent, a symbol of change, transition and the passage of time, like the phases of life, mirroring our own human experiences of growth and decay. The arc then, is more than just a shape; it's a vessel for our collective memories, fears and hopes. It resonates within us because it reflects the universal cycles of existence.
