Eye Painting

In a set of paintings executed in oil on canvas and small/medium format wooden plaques, Duarte Burnay presents us with a selection of recent works. It is possible to look at these paintings and easily be seduced by the virtuosity that the artist presents and which he undoes or disguises with clever solutions (small scales, tonal solutions, etc.), but it seems to me more interesting than that to pass over these artifices and see that this is only the first layer of several. Far from exuberance and formal effusiveness, these paintings assert themselves in a discreet and almost silent way. Despite their timidity that does not claim protagonism, these paintings show risky choices and decisions, seeking in each one of them formal solutions with different approaches. Moon landscapes and images of the cosmos appear side by side with references to artists such as Michael Heizer or Gerhard Richter, creating no thematic hierarchy. Everything is treated with the same hand, everything comes to inhabit the same place. They inhabit the night, where silence speaks louder and light shines only for a few. To access this place where access is not obvious and direct, the route requires an attentive and willing gaze to discover that the strength of these small paintings comes from their cryptic and enigmatic content. Never fully revealed, perhaps they whisper some secret to us, or simply allow us to listen to the silence. Manuel Caldeira