Local Portuguese photographer Francisco Ricarte is showcasing 12 of his works in an exhibition titled “Dark Matter” on the 1st floor of Macau Art Garden in Avenida do D. Rodrigo Rodrigues.
The exhibition is the first segment of Art for All Society’s (AFA) annual project called “As Within, so Without”– The Art of Imagery Exhibition Series, according to an AFA statement. Ricarte, who is 66 and getting ready for retirement later this year, moved to Macau in 2006 and has been working as an architecture project manager.
The statement noted that Ricarte has been practising photography since he was 21 when he received his first reflex camera. He had displayed his works, which are mainly based on the themes of landscape and architecture, by participating in a number of group exhibitions, the statement added.
The “Dark Matter” series was created in 2021 during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, “when the artist was confined in his current resident city of Macau”. The statement noted that the photographs shown at the exhibition were all taken during the day in Coloane “by the edge of Macau into the sea”, where the exposure level was deliberately lowered to create a “mysterious atmosphere of the darkness under the sun”.
The global pandemic situation “has plunged the artist into a deep reflection on his own environment and perhaps more importantly, into the possibilities of the unknowable”, the statement said. The statement also added that the series of photographs are “an allegory that highlights an emotion on how the current situation made us experience Macau”.
The meaning of dark matter, the statement pointed out, refers to “a component of the universe whose presence is discerned from its gravitational attraction rather than its luminosity” and is believed to make up 30.1 percent of the universe’s matter-energy composition, while the rest is dark energy at 69.4 percent and ordinary visible matter at 0.5 percent.
The exhibition runs until April 11 and is open from Mondays to Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. It is closed on Sundays and public holidays.
The photos taken last week at Macau Art Garden in Avenida do Dr. Rodrigo Rodrigues show some of the works featured in Francisco Ricarte’s exhibition titled “Dark Matter”. Photos: Rui Pastorin
