Pintura
José Roberto Aguilar, 1995

I know her work and Teresa Berlinck herself since 1981; January in the Island of Honey, Paraná coast, in front of Paranaguá. I was traveling as an easy rider, “on the road”, without any aim. Alone, in the train that goes down the mountain Curitiba to Paranaguá, I met the charming students Equipe College, who invited me to join the group. Among them, Arnaldo Antunes, Paulo Miklos, Go, Nando Reis, Nuno Ramos, Teresa Berlinck, Vânia Passos, Flávio Smith and many others. We became friends, and on those two weeks of paradise I met a creative, noble generation, which reminded my generation and which was much superior to the previous one, victim of the dictatorship and the attack to the “intelligentsia” after the coup. The result was music with the Titãs, plastic arts with Casa 7.

Teresa Berlinck has a different rhythm. Like a depth bomb, a personal diver path, as if hiding and showing were part of a specific art game. This is not the first exhibition presentation I do for Teresa. The first one was in 1981, in a drawing exhibition with Vânia Passos. The second, a young talents` exhibition at Petite Galerie, in Rio, which included Go, Jac Leirner and Teresa. This third presentation confirms the navigation maturity of Teresa`s works.

Let`s go to them: x-ray, x-ray, x-ray.

Teresa works with x-ray in her eyes.

She chose as a support the very bone structure.

A brilliant metaphor. What keeps her on foot is the language. The bone is the harbor of the x-ray glance. there everything starts. But it is in the sophistication of the plot that this adventure happens. Less was never so more than here. With little paint, Teresa transmits a lot. The suggestive power is enormous. Teresa is not a star. When the painting is ready, its creator disappears. The painting is everything. An oriental concept worthy of the Japanese and Chinese master calligraphers. Nothing like us. To each painting we do, we call a band of martial music and give a ball. But Teresa disappears. The author disappears. It is the picture who tells the story. The process to arrive at this result is very elaborated. Teresa uses a peeling method, that is, of removing the painting, as if the primordial layer were too much glamorized. Until reaching the degree of the paint`s suggestibility, herself unable of finding her objective. The levels of complexity and subtlety in her painting make its qualities not to be apprehended at first sight. They are not easy paintings. They challenge the viewer.

At the same time that Teresa invites to look inside, that is, to pay attention to its bony support, she invites to look upward. Church vaults. Flight parameter, wings, celebration, a cry of victory. An exhibition of maturity, with all the right to champagne and cheers.